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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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Our September book discussion will be Dickens' last novel which was incomplete at the time of his death. I had never read it before, somewhat worried about a "mystery" that had no conclusion, but then when Matthew Pearl came out with his most recent novel, The Last Dickens, I said to myself, "Self, you'd best be catching up on your Dickens."
Please consider joining Joan P, Marcie, and me for what is bound to be a lively discussion.
Dickens in the fall--and late Dickens at that. It just doesn't get any better.
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If you are thinking of joining us in September -- and we hope you do -- please post a message here to let us know.
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions that has useful footnotes.
I've read it and I couldn't put it down. I think that you'll be intrigued too!
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I'm absolutely with you. I read it a lifetime ago, can't find my copy, so, if you would care to recommend the one with the best footnotes, that's what I'll get.
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Pat H--I've only looked at a couple, but the Penguin Classics edition has excellent notes as well as a number of appendices, including one on opium which is very useful.
I think notes are needed for this book as there are a number of references that many readers would not catch, like me, for example.
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I'm very glad you'll be joining us, Pat!
In case anyone is interested, here is a site that has links to some of the text and audio versions of the book that are available online: http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens/
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Yes, please! - I'll come too though I'm not much good at posting pertinent points all the time. I have a copy of Edwin Drood but have never read it so it will be a first time read for me too. Something to look forward to.
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September seems so far away, especially on a hot July day. I can hardly wait to get into this discussion - because I cannot get the story out of my head! Dickens didn't finish it - has left the mystery for others - for US to complete!
And we must speculate about where he himself was going with the story...from what he had been able finish.
In a way, Dickens lives as we rummage in his mind and research his last thoughts.
Maryal...the Penguin notes are...copious! I know the story is available on line - but believe you need footnotes for this book - I gave up after the first chapter...needing notes.
Matthew Pearl has a new edition of Dickens' Drood- I had hoped to compare his notes to Penguin's - but find that it won't be available for publication until October 6 - too late for us. But he has written an Introduction - which might shed some light on Dickens' intentions. (Perhaps we can pursuade him to let us read the introduction even before this edition is available?)
This is a great group gathering here already - should be a sensational discussion! Count me in!
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Yay-- it's Gum, my Aussie friend who lives exactly twelve hours ahead of me. She who ponders and writes fascinating notes while I am snoozing away; something to look forward to in the morning.
Welcome!
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Deems: She who ponders?? I hope that is not to say that my notes are ponderous. :)
JoanP: Yes, September does seem a long time away especially as we are deep into our 'bleak midwinter' - July is our coldest and wettest month.
I purchased my copy of Edwin Drood after we voted for the Dickens discussion - it simply jumped into my hands at the bookshop . It's published by Random House under the Viking imprint 2009 and contains an Introduction by Matthew Pearl and at the back it includes The Trial of John Jasper -a mock trial presided over by G.K. Chesterton and assisted by Hillare Belloc, G.B Shaw et al. Pearl's intro is only about 10 pages and there are no other notes. I guess I'd better save the Viking for a gift for someone and get hold of the Penguin avec notes.
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Gumtree and JoanP, it's wonderful to see that you'll be joining us for the Mystery of Edwin Drood discussion. Gumtree, the edition you have sounds very interesting...with a mock trial!
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Gum--hahahaha! YOU ponderous? No, my friend, never. You are always full of interesting comments that I can have with my coffee and cereal in the morning. You also have a wonderful sense of humor, so I have to be careful with the cereal lest I laugh and hit the computer with a mouthful.
I wonder if the book you found is the one by Matthew Pearl that Joan P says we won't be having available in this country until after our discussion? Given the odd ways that the publishing world works, perhaps copies are now available not only in Australia but also England? Anyway, if you have Pearl's introduction that will be a wonderful contribution to our discussion (as long as it doesn't give the plot away!).
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I'm confused...but that isn't unusual. Gum, will you take a look at this - and see if either one looks familiar? It appears that Matthew Pearl has two different Mystery of Edwin Drood due to come out - one in September and one in October! I'll have to do more sleuthing to find out more.
Mystery of Edwin Drood - Introduction by Matthew Pearl (http://books.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=mystery+of+edwin+drood++Pearl&r=1&box=mystery%20of%20edwin%20drood%20%20Pearl&pos=-1)
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Joan, in your link to Barnes and Noble above, the first book listed appears to have a publisher in the U.K.
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Back again after a lot of stormy weather - the bad weather is pushing up from Antarctica - it's cold and we had heavy hailstorms yesterday which is unusual for us.
Deems What a picture you paint - Please be warned that I take no responsibility for any damages incurred by spluttering cereal and slurping coffee all over your monitor. :o
JoanP I checked out the link to the Droods. The first one with the illustration of the pocket watch on the cover is the same as the one I have - has the same ISBN.
I rarely read Introductions before I read the novel because there are always spoilers of one kind or another. I find it best to read the Intros after the first quick read of the book and then settle in to a more searching read. But just for you, I took a look at Pearl's Intro and while some of it is related to Dickens' life and publishing history he does have short assessments of a few characters with a view to relating their lives and actions to Dickens' own life. Not really spoilers but as always they do give something away.
I plan to read up on Dickens to get some background into my head before we start on Drood. I know it's a literary sacrilege to admit it, but try as I might, I have never been a fan of the great man. He's a storyteller for sure but somehow it is always the grotesque aspects of his writing that loom in my mind and stop me from seeing much else.
I'm hoping this discussion will change my perspective.
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Oh, Gum, of course you will not be held accountable for damage to my keyboard (it's a laptop), and I do try to keep it at a distance while eating. This poor old computer MUST hold together because although it's old and slow, it has the only way for me to connect to work through the old system. I don't know what I'll do when it finally gives up the ghost.
Don't spoil the book for yourself, but it does seem to have an intro. by Pearl which will be interesting to Joan P since, as she said, the book won't be published in this country until later this year. I think you Aussies are privileged folk.
I understand your standoffishness to Dickens because my daughter is the same way. Then she saw the PBS program on Little Dorrit and the other two they did and said, "Hey this Dickens is pretty good." If she can be won over, anyone can.
The Dickens novel that I've always thought it would be fun to do here is Bleak House, which despite the gloomy title, is I think, his best. He's very experimental in that novel, using a woman--Esther Summerson--to narrate nearly a quarter of the book. He also does some interesting things with present tense. Stylistically, he was ahead of his time. Bleak House was also a Masterpiece Theater series here, and it was very good, but it omitted so much of the novel.
It's the height of summer here, heat and humidity (though not as bad as most summers), shorts, and lots of outdoor activity. In June it rained and rained, to the point where my basement had flooding nearly every time--and now we badly need rain. The trees are all fine, but the grass and little plants are thirsty.
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Not that this is anything new for the month but I am expereincing a problem with ordering a copy of the Penguin classic on Amazon. The site times out before it can be placed into my cart.
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Hola! Andy! Are you still vacationing with children and grands? Perhaps you will have better luck in a bookstore, like Barnes and Noble. You have LOTS of time until Sept., and we will be taking the whole month to read the half novel. Panic not.
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Andy, We're looking forward to your joining us. Hopefully, your problem on Amazon is temporary and you'll be able to order later or, as Deems says, find the book in a local bookstore.
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As I was Googling "Drood" I found this review of Dan Simmons' Droodhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/09/AR2009020902977.html
Louis Bayard's last paragraph is enough for me: A more apropos title, then, might have been "A Tale of Two Egos," which, all in all, is a worthy subject, but not worth the epic length afforded to it. Inside this artery-clogging almost-800-page book is a sleek and sinewy 300-page thriller waiting to be teased out. If only Simmons hadn't left the job to us.
Although I am one of those who do not revere Dickens, I will try again with the Mystery of Edwin Drood. I did like A Tale of two Cities, Great Expectations and Christmas Carol.
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Jacki, it's great that you'll be joining us for The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I found it engaging. I didn't want it to end... (lol, or maybe I DID want to have an ending!)
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Jackie, it is a pleasure to have you with us! It's brave of you to give
Dickens another chance, and you have enjoyed some of his books. In his day he was an enormously popular writer, sort of the soap opera king of his time. People read the latest installment of his novels out loud in the evening to the whole family.
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Beats me but the staff at Amazon was wonderful. they actually ordered it for me. We worked it together and when it came time for me to one click it for purchase or to put it into the cart, it timed out. They changed their browser system last month but told me it was MY computer. I did all of the defrag, empty this and that, so we'll see. I bought it for .09 cents + shipping. God knows what that will be but B & N wanted over 25 bucks for it. NOT!
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I'm glad you were able to get the book, Andy. You can't beat that price! Of course the shipping costs more than the book :-)
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Just weighing in to say I would like to be part of the discussion group. I am not much of a Dicken's fan, but I did enjoy Great Expectations and read it more than once. The Tale of Two Cities is my favorite. I ordered the Drood book but haven't received it yet. To get an idea of what the book is about I am reading The Puzzle of Dicken's Last Plot. It is a short book and probably a spoiler but I don't care about that. I have just read a couple of pages but what has been suggested is that it is important to get the characters fixed in your mind as well as their relationship to each other.
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Donnie, it's always exciting for us to welcome a new participant! We're glad you'll be joining us. May I ask how you heard about SeniorLearn and our discussion of The Mystery of Edwin Drood?
The Puzzle of Dicken's Last Plot (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/738) sounds interesting. Thanks for letting us know about it (although, as you say, it might be a spoiler for those who have not yet read Dicken's mystery). When I was a child, I spent one summer reading all of Andrew Lang's Fairy Stories that were in our public library (Blue Fairy Book, Red Fairy Book, etc).
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Hi, Donnie, and welcome. Thanks for the warning about keeping characters and their relationships straight. Since that's my weakness, I'll start keeping a list from the start. I think you'll like the discussions here. By taking so much time, we really get a lot out of books, and the people are really nifty.
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I'll be joining you. I'll have to get a copy of the book. Our library had it listed and I was on the wait list. And then the title disappeared from their card catalog and my hold also vanished. Just off into cyber space...sooo, I'll be ordering it from Amazon, or just pick it up at a book store. I'll get the Penguin classic. Maybe I'll also get it for $.09 plus shipping. ;)
Evelyn
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Hooray, Evelyn! We're getting a great group here. That's too bad that someone lost or damaged the book in your library. I hope you find an inexpensive copy.
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Welcome Donnie and Evelyn! How good it is to see our group expanding. Looks like it's possible to get the Penguin Drood for less than the shipping.
Woot!
Donnie--Yes indeed. There are many characters in the novel and it is important to keep them straight as well as their relationships to each other. It's good to have you with us.
Evelyn--It's also wonderful to see you. I don't think you will have any trouble finding a book, and it is available online as well. But I don't think there are notes to the online version, and this novel needs notes. Perhaps I should say that I needed some notes and have found them interesting to read.
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Please count me in. I will be reading the book on my Kindle. So, I do not know who the publisher was, or if there are notes. I really like reading on my Kindle. I can enlarge the print, and it holds my place for me.
Sheila
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Welcome, Sheila. That's great that you'll be joining us. It really is a very interesting book. A number of people who participate on this site enjoy their Kindles.
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Welcome, Sheila! I have a Kindle too and I enjoy reading on it. I'll be using the Penguin edition with notes so feel free to ask if you have any questions about references. No doubt references to notes that are especially interesting will be made here. It's good to have you aboard!
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Just trying out a split personality, hmm.
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Well, I have received my book but it does not have the footnotes that I had expected. Perhaps I ordered the wrong one but it is complete and unabridged so I will most likely have plenty of questions.
I have read 33 pages so far and am keeping notes on who is who in the story.
Don't I have a lot of nerve I barely know who I am anymore. :-[
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Marcie's not only split, PatH, she's split in 3. I wonder what happened to Marcie 2.
Andy--good to hear your book has come. Sorry about the footnotes, but good on you for keeping a list. There are many characters in this novel, even some who are introduced near the "end," which wouldn't have been the end if Dickens had lived.
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muhahahaha.... (evil laughter). I've deleted my experimental "test" message in this discussion for which I created another temporary username. What happened to that user? Could it be she had the same fate as Edwin Drood? What DID happen to Edwin Drood?
We'll investigate and postulate our own theories as we discuss the novel together starting September 1!
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I received my book on Wednesday. It is the Penguin edition and has pages and pages of introduction, appendices, notes, and also the story. This is going to be an education. Looking forward to it.
Evelyn
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Late to the party, but not too late ... just posting to say I'll be joining in and using my very old edition of "Drood" which has all the original chapters just as Dickens wrote them and then some additional chapters added by another author to "finish" the mystery. I don't remember at all what the so-called solution was, but it'll be fun to add whatever it is into the discussion.
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Thought that I had signed up for this intriguing title but better late than never. Looking forward to this discussion of half a book by Dickens.
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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Welcome, catbrown and Adoannie!
Evelyn, I'm glad you've gotten the Penguin edition with appendices and notes to help us learn more.. Catbrown, we'll learn from you, too, as you share information from the edition of the book that you have.
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Welcome catbrown and Anne!
Yes, half a book is better than none!
I'm glad not to be alone in having the Penguin edition because there is much interesting information in it--doubt that we can do more than scratch the surface. Everyone needs to feel free to ask questions whenever they come up, as they surely will.
The notes are often helpful and several of the Appendices help to understand the times. I found the one on Opium especially interesting since that drug figures prominently in the plot.
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I just finished Drood and i loved it! I can't wait for the Professor to begin this one.
Why? I kept asking myself did I not care for Dickens so long ago?
Perhaps it was youth or maybe the verbiage of the old English gentlemen.
I am now starting Matthew Pearl's intriguing journey The Last Dickens that will be a "follow-up" read after we complete Drood. Let me entice you with the book blurb to join us in October for this discussion.
"Boston, 1870, When news of Charles Dickens's untimely death reaches the office of his strugglig Ameican publisher, Fields, & Osgood, partner James Osgood sends his trusted clerk Daniel Sand to await the arrival of Dickens's unfinished novel. BUT when Daniel's body is discovered by the docks and the manuscript is nowhere to be found, Osgood must embark on a transatlantic quest to unearth the novel that he hopes will save his venerable business and reveal Daniel's killer."
DANGER ABOUNDS!
Come in and join us here. We will finish Mr. Dicken's book after all.
click here (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=751.0)
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Andy--so happy to hear that you finished it---and LIKED it!! Yay! I think this book is hard to read than many of his others, so you've got a whole lot of books ahead of you. May I recommend Bleak House?
I hope to join everyone in the discussion that will follow this one--on Matthew Pearl's The Last Dickens. It is to be in October; I read somewhere that Pearl's book will be out in paperback that month, although I don't know if it will be in time for the discussion.
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Andy, I too am glad that you liked THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Since I too have read the book, I'm currently re-reading it in an interesting way. I'm reading a book called THE D CASE OR THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD by Charles Dickens, Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentine. It's a fun way to read the original novel by Dickens since this book reprints "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" in its unfinished entirety and, at the end of each chapter, famous detectives of fiction (Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, Father Brown and others) discuss the "evidence" with one another and try to solve the mystery.
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Did you know that there was a musical on Broadway called a solve it yourself play??? I have reserved it from my library just to see what they have done with it.
Marcie,
I was also able to reserve your title, it sounded so interesting.
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Yes, the Drood musical had several different endings of "who did it." The audience would vote on who they thought did it and the actors would present that ending.
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Oh Marcie, what fun that would be to join in with the major sleuths. I'm going to check out Amazon right now. (I have a gift certificate left.)
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You can listen to samples of the music from the Tony-award-winning musical "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" here: http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Edwin-Drood-Solve-Yourself/dp/B0000014WF/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1250523476&sr=1-1
You can read all of the lyrics here: http://www.allmusicals.com/m/mysteryofedwindroodthe.htm
There is a video of the opening number, "There You Are," and "Don't Quit While You're Ahead"-- the number that reunites the whole cast at the end of the second act, right before the narrator tells the audience that this is where the story Charles Dickens wrote ended. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fE2VW1rYZ0
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Oh, Marcie, what wonderful links! We need to put them up in the discussion links. And, there was Betty Buckley, one of my favorites. Wasn't she in the TV show, "Eight is Enough"??
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I've added the links to the top of the page, Ann. I had forgotten that Betty Buckley was in Eight Is Enough. I love her voice and have seen her on a couple of Broadway-related programs on PBS. It's interesting that she was cast as Edwin Drood in the musical.
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Oh, Betty Buckley is playing Edwin Drood?? I can't hear the words very well so did not know why she was dressed in a man's suit. I have put on my headphones and will see if that helps. Oh, and did you hit pause button at the very beginning and see who is on that screen?? Its Bea Arthur! But she is not listed in the players names. I know she did a lot of musical theatre on Broadway. Hmmm, is she a bleed over from another UTube presentation??
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Bea Arthur was "introducing" the musical. I think the video is from a Broadway awards show.
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Sounds plausible to me, Marcie! ;D
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Hi Deems!
Good to see some action on this site at last
I started to read Drood last night. Just as well I did as I'm finding it hard to get into the cadences of Dickens' writing. I never did like him but am hoping that will change.
I haven't bought a copy of the annotated Penguin yet but will do so this weekend if it's on the shelves somewhere handy.
See you soon!
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Oh stick with Mr. Dickens Gumtree. Like Shakespeare it helps to read him aloud when you start losing focus with "his cadence."
It's well worth the read. Oh I do so wish that I had the footnotes however. Is it Sept. yet? ::)
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ALF: Of course I'll stick to the Dickens - Gumtrees are noted for their sticky gum
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Gum ;) I'm glad to hear that you'll be sticking with us!
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i have ordered the book on line and am looking forward to participating in the discussion.
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Welcome, Jean. I think that you'll enjoy the book and discussion. I'm glad you'll be joining us.
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After our September discussion of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, we have scheduled Matthew Pearl's newest novel for our October selection.
Matthew has graciously accepted our invitation and has made his first post in The Last Dickens.
He will be a wonderful resource and he has left some links for us.
PLEASE, please stop by in The Last Dickens and welcome him to our new site here at SeniorLearn.
Thanks everyone.
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Alf,
What a coup! Another author is joining us this year. Congratters![/color]
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Donnie: I was intrigued by your description of The Puzzle of Dickens' Last Plot (Andrew Lang, 1905) so I googled it. It is available online for download here: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/738, Should add to the discussion so thanks for the reference. I've ordered the Penguin. This one sounds like I'll need to make copious notes so the library copy won't do.
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Thanks for the reference, Donnie, and for locating it online, mrsherlock.
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I am planning on joining the discussion. I have downloaded both audio and text versions.
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I'm so glad to see so many others who never cared for Dickens. But how can I resist giving him another chance with such a great group, and a Mathew Pearl discussion to follow! I'm in.
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nfrsw and JoanK. How lovely to know that you'll be joining the discussion. I'm glad you're giving this Dickens novel a chance.
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Glad to see other non-fans of Dickens will be here too..
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Okay, I'll bite! Who is Donnie?? And where are those links to the audio and book text??
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So I went to B&N and downloaded the book to my computer but I can't figure out how to play it. Anyone know the answer???
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ijust recieved the Dickens book and have read the intro by Chesterson. It sounds like an interesting story. Hope to ber able to have some input as I get into the book.
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That's great, Jean. I'll look forward to your comments about the book once we get started.
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GREAT, JEAN. I've ordered the book, but it hasn't come yet.
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In the spirit of "keep the few remaining independent bookstores alive", I went to Politics and Prose today. They had 2 paperback versions, but not the Penguin. Worst case scenario is I dig out the moldering paperback I read 50 years ago, but I don't think it will come to that. P & P seems to be pretty healthy, but I always try to buy things there first; can't be too careful.
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I believe in supporting local independent bookstores but my pocketbook's bottom is too often visible. Too much month at the end of the money. So I ordered from Amazon and it arrived today.
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Mine just arrived but its from our local library so I will have to renew it several times during our discussion.
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Are all of you getting the Penguin version? I had pretty much decided to read the electronic version and get some of the critical books that our University here has -- if I can ever find a parking place close enough to their library.
Public library has no print editions, only electronic.
PatH, for future reference, where is Politics and Prose? (Though I feel I really did my duty in Seattle and New York this summer -- The Strand and Third Place Books and a few other independents.)
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There are used copies of THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, including the Penguin edition, at Alibris from $1.99 plus shipping. http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=4547021&matches=612&wquery=mystery+of+edwin+drood&cm_sp=works*listing*title
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Pedln, it's about 5 miles from your son's house, at Connecticut and Nebraska, a mile inside Northwest DC. Here's their website, with a tab that will take you to directions:
http://www.politics-prose.com/ (http://www.politics-prose.com/)
Parking is kind of weird, though. Since I grew up 4 blocks away, I know the back way to their lot.
They aren't large, but they have an unusually interesting and well-selected stock, and are one of those places where serendipity works well.
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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Those of you who watch BookTV have seen Politics and Prose. Their author discussions are always being broadcast on CSPAN. As the name suggests, they specialize in non-fiction, are THE place to go for anything political. But they have all kinds of books, book groups that read classic liturature, and have a nice cafe (from decades before the chains started doing it). It's a really nice bookstore -- I hope it never goes under.
The parking lot is a challange, though. Consult PATH for the tiny road where you can find parking (and where Pat and I used to get into trouble as kids). As PatH says, we grew up about four blocks away. Unfortunately, the bookstore wasn't there then.
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PatH: What a neat website! Found sots of interesting books (!) to put on my library list. Thanks
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Just what you need, right, Jackie?
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\Well, I do get frantic at the thought of running out of books to read!
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Jackie: "frantic" is exactly the word!! I don't know what I think will happen, but the thought of facing a day without a book to read is horrible.
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That is a neat website, PatH. Thanks for the info. Looks like I can get there without the Beltway -- just Bradley to Connecticut. :D
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My Mathew Pearl came, but not the Dickens. It had better hurry up, if I'm going to be ready Sept 1.
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Deems, how far should we read before the 1st?
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And that's my question exactly !
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I have the Penguin edition but am not looking forward to reading it. I watched both of the old movies and found them horribly boring. I sure hope that doesn't happen with the book.
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The book is NOT boring, Ann! I'm sorry that the old movies were.
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Here is a schedule for our discussion of the book:
Chapter discussion schedule:
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
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Thanks, Marcie.
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Thanks, Marcie. I will send that list to myself. ;)
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Annie, can you tell us something about the two films you saw based on this book? How old were they? I have to wonder how the screenwriters handled this unfinished novel? Did they simply make up an ending? I'd like to know who advised them as to where Dickens intended to take the story before he died?
But never mind the ending - have you started to read the novel yet? I admit to struggling with that first chapter - Difficult to get into, wasn't it? Had no idea what was going on...until I read it a few times and realized that I wasn't supposed to understand it yet! Actually I didn't settle down into the story until the third chapter. Thanks for the reading schedule, Marcie.
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Joan: I haven't started it yet so thanks for the heads up about the first and second chapters. Maybe I'd better start reading?
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Thanks for the reading schedule Marcie.
I agree with the assessment of the first couple of chapters - I nearly threw Drood at the wall shouting "will no one rid me of this Dreadful Dickens' ;) but perseverance won the day. It gets better but I am not yet convinced.
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Watch out, Gumtree! The man you're paraphrasing got into a lot of trouble for that.
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Hello to all our cheerful and long-suffering Dickens' readers!!
Tomorrow is September 1 and the official beginning of our reading this last of Dickens' novels. I'm struck, as I reread, by Chapter 1, as I was the first time. It is a most unwelcoming opening and yet fascinating to me.
Can you figure out where we are in the first part, and what on earth are all those foreign things like elephants and spires doing in merrie olde England?
And who are these people?
The illustration that Marcie has included in the header is entitled "In the Court." It is by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes who did the illustrations for the novel, and it accompanies Chapter One. Let's look at it and see if we can determine who these people are.
Trumpets!!! Chimes!! We begin!!!
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"will no one rid me of this Dreadful Dickens' " :D
Sob. My book still hasn't come. I'm hopelessly behind before we even begin. If it doesn't come tomorrow, I'll try to get it from the library.
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Joan, I'm sorry that your book hasn't arrived. An option would be to start reading the text (or listen to audio) online until you get your book. There are options at http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens/
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I had a lot of trouble not finding the Penguin edition, so gave up and today got it out of the library. This is a big deal for me, as I am allergic to perfume, and all our library books are permeated with the same scent, which gives me breathing problems, but I'm able to read it at arm's length, and boy, am I hooked. I've already read the first 2 chapters, and will have no trouble reading more promptly. I'll save comments until tomorrow.
The minor advantage is that my book has an introduction by Michael Innes, plus the original illustrations by Fildes. I haven't yet read the introduction--I don't like to be told what to think before I have a chance to think it--but Innes wrote a number of excellent detective stories with many literary references, and under his real name (J. I. M. Stewart) was a literature prof, so he probably has something useful to say.
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That sounds like a useful edition of the book, PatH. I don't have allergies so I've not noticed the scent of books in our library. Is the scent of the books in your library the perfume used by your librarian?
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Well, I've started reading the novel online, but it is on my agenda that before I go to my Red Hat lunch to again hunt for a parking place at the university library to find a copy there. (I think they have 3 or 4 metered places for visitors). And I will look closely to see who has written the introduction and if notes are provided. (Michael Innes does sound familiar, PatH.)
Reading a novel on line is not my cup of tea. (Maybe I need to use the laptop and sit in the recliner with my feet up.) My first reaction was like Gum's. That first chapter -- do I want to read a whole book of this? But things are improving and I know the discussion will help. I do need to find a larger copy of "In the Court" if we are to identify the people in it.
My thoughts right now are on the people who avidly bought up each chapter of Dickens' subscriptions. What did they think after reading chapter one?
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I had not planned to read this book but when I found it was a free download to my Kindle I thought well why not at least try to read it. So I now have it on my Kindle and will give it a try,
Joan Grimes
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Pedln, I don't have the Penguin edition either so will have to rely on others to share notes. We welcome people with any edition of the book.
JoanG, I'm very glad that were able to download the book to your Kindle and that you'll be joining us!
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Great, Joan! How nice to see you here.
What an opening! We start in a haze of opium-fueled weirdness, as an unnamed man is struggling back to reality in a sordid little opium den, presumably in London. He comes to himself enough to pay and leave. Later, we see a traveler, possibly the same man, hurry into a cathedral, pull on his robes, go in with the choir, and sit down just before the first words of the service thunder out.
It would be hard work reading a whole book written like that, but it's a great start.
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Good morning! The Dawn - I heard the cymbals and the trumpets calling. This must be the day~
It's so good to get started - hopefully to get a better understanding of the opening chapter. Weren't you totally bewildered? What is this talk of ten thousand dancing girls and white elephants? I read and reread the opening chapter and tried to make sense of it - until I realized that it was senseless - it was all a dream. A drug-induced dream - so of course it didn't make sense!
Pedln, I too thought of the folks who had eagerly looked forward to Dickens' next novel, purchased the first installment of the Mystery of Edwin Drood and were reading the same words that we are considering today. The difference is - they were familiar with the drug - and its effects. They knew what Dickens was writing about, the cravings for opium and the strange dreams of a different life from the drudgery of their own.
There's an Appendix in the Penguin edition - Appendix 5 - that tells of this drug and its popularity in detail. The scene looks pretty sordid - the engraving in the heading tells it all - all those strange people in the bed. In a bed! It's not too difficult to pick out one of the characters that will play a part in Dickens' story.
Can't wait to hear your first thoughts when you read this chapter - aside from wanting to toss the book across the room! :D
PatH - we were posting at the same time. No, I can't imagine reading a whole book like the opening chapter - as if reading through a cloud of opium!
I can't help but think of you, reading with watery eyes....do you think it's the fumes from library paste? Or mold? Have you thought of putting the book in a plastic bag to read it?
JoanG - please promise that you will not give up right away - tempting as it may be. It does get better~ much better!
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The Order for Evening Prayer
Daily throughout the year
At the beginning of Evening Prayer the Minister shall read with a loud voice some one or more of these Sentences of the Scriptures that follow. And then he shall say that which is written after the said Sentences.
When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Ezek. 18.27
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/mpep/evening.html (http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/mpep/evening.html)
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I look forward to reading that Appendix when I get my Penguin Book, and getting all those details, but no Sherlock Holmes fan needs an appendix to explain the first scene. "The Man with the Twisted Lip" describes a similar, though slightly less sordid den, also with a lascar (a native East Indian sailor).
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Pat, Sherlock Holmes came to my mind also while reading some of the opium-related scenes.
Thanks for sharing the full quote about the wicked man.Tension is created by having a supposedly "good" man with an evil side that most people don't see.
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Well, I've started; skipped the multi-page intro. I am annoyed by all the numbered notes which would interrupt the flow of the tale if i stopped to look up each one so I try to ignore them. The type is small and hard to read in bed; I either need glasses with a higher magnification or a brighter lamp or both. Strange tale so far, I'm just starting Chapter 3.
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Jackie, I too read through the first time without reading any notes. Can you use regular magnification glasses (with no prescription) for reading? The Dollar Tree stores have them for $1.00! Longs, Walmart, Walgreens, etc, carry them also.
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I'm keeping a list of the links that people submit as well as our questions as we go along. With your help, we'll have a "readers guide" completed at the end of our discussion.
See http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html
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You're right, PatH - the picture of the group on the bed in the sordid room tells it all. They say one picture is worth a thousand words... Let me share something on landanum/opium from Appendix 5 found in the back of the Penguin edition anyway. I found it interesting, maybe you will too.
Opium - from the white poppy, was called the "plant of joy" on account of its ability to relieve pain and effect a change of mood.
By the 16th century it was established in western Europe among a limited group of physicians and apothecaries - to alleviate pain.
Landanum was one of several opiate preparations dissolve in alcohol.
By the late 18th century its usage was no more remarkable than that of aspirin and other analgesics today.
No restrictions hampered its sale before 1868. It was available from pharmacies, apothecaries, grocers and general dealers, all ow whom dispensed raw opium and landanum.
Among the numerous compounds for purchase without prescription were - Paragoric Elixir, a soothing or consoling camphorated tincture of opium...Godfrey's Cordial, a children's opiate administered to colicky infants... I seem to remember the use of something called "Paragoric" - - before I had my own babies...a long time ago. Do you? I don't think I knew it was opium though.
Few taking the drug regularly would bother to analyze the reasons behind their consumption.
The shift in attitude towards opium came in the period which Edwin Drood documents ...
To smoke opium as opposed to taking it orally was indeed less common. For thoses who smoked opium a single non-medical motive sufficed: a pleasurable relief to which in some degree, they were addicted.
The drug produced an artificial state of pleasurable excitement.
There's more, but it is enough to conclude that the people in this awful room lying together on the four poster bed all had something in common - they were all addicts, seeking their own pleasurable dream-state.
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I remember being given paregoric when I was a child. This is what i found on Google: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/what-recovery/68096-paragoric-anybody-remember.html
Castor oil was also given to me, in Coke or orange juice. Don't know why, I've never had any digestive roblems that way.
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Welcome, Joan Grimes--delighted to have you with us! Please have any reaction you want and tell us. We're interested in what everyone has to say here.
Has anyone thought about how Dickens' readers here in the States must have longed for the ship to arrive with the latest installments? Reading aloud was evening entertainment for whole families--no worries about the material being "family friendly" here. I suspect that the younger children would have nodded off after hearing Chapter 1, perhaps with visions of elephants, sultans, a Chinaman and a Lascar. But said young child would have missed the opium dream completely--as I did upon first reading. It took me a second reading to catch on.
If my hypothetical child had stayed awake until the end of the chapter, perhaps she would have trembled when she heard the words about the "wicked man" at the end.
Joan P--Thanks so much for condensing some of the information on opium use in the 19th century for us! Opium was widely available, in one form or another, including cough medicines for children. It was an important drug in the days before antibiotics when all one could do with the seriously ill was to make them feel better, to ease their pain.
It seems though that John (Jack) Jasper's pain is more psychological than physical. Did you all notice how he treated the other inhabitants of the shabby room in London? He assumes that what the others say in their dreams is "unintelligible," concluding that people's dreams must somehow be aligned with their station in life, that educated folks will have one kind of dream, and poor sailors quite another. And yet, if you think about it, the Chinaman may have been mumbling in Chinese. Makes me wonder what Jasper's mumbling sounded like to others.
Thanks, Pat H, for the lines from the evening service. Dickens' readers would surely have recognized the invocation from evening prayer, especially the English readers. Nowadays we (I) need a footnote. At any rate, the suggesting is that this man, the one whom we have followed from London, may in fact be a wicked man. (I'm so sorry that your perfumed book gets to you. Be careful to hold it well away!)
Marcie--thank you for making a separate page of links for a reader's guide, just the sort of preparation that I admire--and seldom think of doing.
Mrs. Sherlock--Good to hear that you have made it to Chapter 3. There is a story here, after all. Thank heaven it's not all an opium dream or we would all have to throw the book at a wall! Don't let the notes bother you--they are not required and you can always read them later.
Pedln and Joan K--I really hope that books make it to you, one way or another. I don't like reading novels online either. There's just something about turning pages and marking passages that I enjoy + the smell of paper (much better than perfume).
OK, folks, what are your first impressions of Jasper and the other clerics? Actually I should simply say of Jasper and the clerics since he himself is not ordained. He's the choir/ music director, but not a minister.
And Edwin Drood? Does he impress you? Are you taken with this young man or with his slightly older uncle Jack?
Over to you, our night-tripping fairy Gum. Expecting to see you've been here when I log in tomorrow.
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Couldn't get in yesterday - sorry.
I really do struggle with Dickens even though I love the 19th century literature. The first Chapter was enough to put me right off. Second reading helped and I could see the dream etc. and the scene was obviously that of an opium den - I'm speaking here from information gleaned from my reading rather than personal experience :)
...they were all addicts, all seeking their own pleasurable dream state
I agree, perhaps they are also seeking escape from the realities of their individual lives.
The identity of the man is not immediately revealed - his superior attitude toward the other occupants of the bed was rather off-putting. Presumably he is the 'jaded traveller' and his arrival at evening service just in time suggests he knows himself to be a 'wicked man' - perhaps wanting to give up his wicked ways or just hoping to save his soul alive.
I need to re-read the next couple of chapters before I can comment but one Dickensian thing that always gets my goat is his penchant for obvious nomenclature to describe the characters - Rosa Bud for the sweet young thing? Landless, Sapsea, Honeythunder, Twinkleton - give me strength!
Does anyone know how long each instalment was in the serialised
publication?
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I've a mild interest in the coastal schooners and early steamships on the West Aust coast -especially on the run from Fremantle to Singapore. Many of the seamen were Lascars - here's a link to Lascars working from the London docks.
http://www.lascars.co.uk/plafeb1931.html
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
Deems:
There's GUM! And she brings with her photographs of lascars, those east Indian sailors, one of whom lies sprawled sideways across the bed in the opium den. Thank you, Gum, and you made me laugh because you said exactly what my daughter has always said about Dickens--it's those ridiculous names!!
In defense of Dickens (though I'm not sure even I can defend ROSA BUD), there are some peculiar last names in England so he had a bunch to pick from for various characters. For example, in later life, Dickens and his wife were separated and he developed an "interest" in a young actress. Her maiden name was "Landless," so that one is a real name. I think what he did, more than invent all the silly names, was notice names around him that he could attach to a character who seemed to embody that name.
I currently have a plebe whose last name is "Slack." Just imagine the character I could create around that name. Mr. Slack says that he's heard jokes about his name all his life.
As for the most dainty and particular ROSA BUD--I offer only the excuse that the Victorian audience was incredibly sentimental--kittens and young girls and really sappy greeting cards and fairies of all kinds--and Dickens knew his audience.
Let's watch Rosa carefully and see if she turns out to have something inside her that resembles an adult person.
The first installment of Drood was Chapters 1-4. The Penguin edition has an asterisk at the end of each installment.
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And how about the nickname the poor girl answers to - "Pussy." Right away you get the feeling that there is not much to the girl - certainly not the type to arouse such passion in Drood's Uncle Jack. I'm wondering if it isn't the opium use. That, plus the fact that he is a young man (weren't you surprised to learn that he is only 26?) and there doesn't seem to be other ladies in his rather small circle of acquaintances. I wonder if we will learn what brings him to this little hamlet in the first place. The job? He doesn't seem to have family here or other friends.
From Appendix 5, some of the side effects of smoked opium - "the stimulation of the male libidinal impulse" - it is said to produce erection." So I'm imagining Uncle Jack hurrying to the church in his choir robes - and then over to give the music lesson to the budding young rosebud.
Dickens wasted no time describing this character as an ominous figure - dark and brooding - condescending to his fellow man too, the lascars, (thanks for the link, Gum) - the Chinaman. His more or less exotic dreams of tens of thousands of dancing girls are far superior to those of his "repugnant" roommates in the opium den - "What visions can she
have- visions of butcher shops and public houses...While Dickens provides little description of his character in the title, our attention is drawn to him through the eyes of his uncle:
"Mr. Jasper looks on intently at the young fellow. Once for all, a look of intentness and intensity - a look of hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection - is always, now and ever afterwards, on the Jasper face, whenever the Jasper face is addressed in this direction."
Watch out for this two-faced Wicked Man...thanks for filling in the rest of the hymn, PatH - did you notice that Dickens left out the part about salvation and turning away from wickedness Was this intentional?
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Jackie et al - thank you for responding to the paragoric question. I thought I remembered that use from long ago. You have to wonder what dreams the opiate provided the sleeping babies...
"Has anyone thought about how Dickens' readers here in the States must have longed for the ship to arrive with the latest installments?" Maryal
Maryal, Matthew Pearl must have thought about it - as he opens his story on the Boston docks as the final installment is unloaded from London...
I hope you all will consider taking up his "The Last Dickens" after reading Dickens' last installment.
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I listened to the first chapter read online -- it reads aloud well, as you can imagine. Pat had warned me that it was an opium dream, so I was clued in.
Now for the second.
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JoanP,
The movies were both pretty old, probably made back in the '30's and maybe one in the '50's. The sound was so bad on the oldest that I almost gave up on it. Other than that, nothing to tell here.
Lascars? Hmmm, why were the lascars even mentioned. How many of the Americans who awaited each chapter knew what a "lascar" was???
Do I detect the possibility of the two unhappy 'lovers' wanting to change their fathers' orders?? Do I understand them to want a choice of their unlived lives?? Wow, what a mess this will be if it ever gets bandied about.
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My gosh, paragoric is made from opium??? We were told to give it to our babies when they had stomach cramps and then very sparingly, but I had no idea that it was made from opium. Good grief!
We also had an OTC called "terpenhydrate and codiene" which was a cough medicine. Hey, I'm not that old that no here remembers these things??? Your kidding, right??? ;) ;) Sulphanilamide tablets or pills, given as an anti-biotic for just about anything that seemed like strep throat or scarlet fever or scarletina?? No one??
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Joan K--Thank you so much for calling attention to the links that Marcie has gathered for us.
I just listened to chapters 2 and 3--I love being read aloud to. The conversation between Jasper and his nephew is fascinating to listen to as is that between Rosa and Edwin. I may listen to all the rest of the chapters that I can fit into an increasingly busy schedule.
How it makes the novel come alive to listen!
And I can understand how families must have spent the evenings with some of the audience insisting on hearing the next chapter.
As for paragoric and those other old medicines. I suspect that many of them had substances, such as opium, in them that we'd all rather not think about!
I do remember my sister telling me how lucky I was not to have to take castor oil. Apparently it was all the rage when she was a child, discontinued by the time I came along.
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Since Jasper is an opium addict, we're bound to hear more about it in the chapters to come. One last bit from Appendix 5 on the effects of smoking opium -
shortness of breath, prone to coughing and disabling fits, leaving users with a strange film over their eyes.
By the way, this description of an opium user in Appendix 5 in the Penguin edition - was taken from Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821) De Quincey was the same age as Jasper John in our story - 26.. Dickens Dickens had researched opium use - even frequented the opium dens in London for detailed description of how the opium was prepared for smoking. (No, there's nothing to indicate that he smoked the opium, but you have to wonder how he was received. Maybe because he was Charles Dickens they gave him easy access?)
"Common to all users, the symptoms are easily recognized. Hands shake, drops of perspiration accumulate on foreheads, eyes stare blindly covered with a curious film while lungs wheeze and rattle.." -
Surely young Edwin will notice such symptoms when visiting his uncle. Dickens seems quite restrained in describing Edwin, doesn't he? The only way we can get to know him is through his dialog with his uncle - and with his intended. Annie, I was interested in the conversation between the two young people as they walked alone - neither are happy with the arrangement made by their parents. Do they come right out and say this - or is it just subtly implied. I do remember Edwin saying to Rosa - "Can't you understand anything?"
We're flying away on a jet plane today - Prague and then London. Plan to keep up with the reading while abroad - also will check out the London bookstores to see if Drood is getting the same renewed attention there as it is here.
Keep an eye on the funny uncle, okay? ;)
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Have a wonderful trip, JoanP!! and thank you for coming in with more information on opium use.
We will miss you!!
Edwin does notice that his uncle is having problems, and Jasper admits that he has been taking opium. The confession does not fill Edwin with horror--remember that opium was not illegal--but the reader is alerted to yet more effects on the opium taker.
I'm fascinated by the sketch of Rosa that Edwin made. It now hangs on Jasper's wall. Apparently, he thought highly enough of the artist, or of the subject, to display it. There are at least three references to the sketch in chapter 2.
Has anyone else listened to a Librivox recording of a chapter yet? I think the reader is very good, and the dialogue is really interesting.
Anne--I agree with you. Neither Edwin nor Rosa seems particularly happy with their engagement. Rosa would like to have had some choice, and Edwin seems focused on believing that--somehow--things will work out once they are married and safely in Egypt. His optimism looks like wishful thinking to me since he is clearly aware that Rosa always finds ways to quarrel with him.
I think "Lumps of Love" is a wonderful name for a confectionary shop. Rosa certainly seems to get all sticky--to the point where she tells Edwin not to kiss her because she has sugar all over her!! Way to get out of it.
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Thanks for the additional information related to opium. The "film over the eyes" is one to watch for.
What a picture of everyone in the same bed in the opium den! Regarding the comments at the end of the first chapter by the "watcher" in the opium den, my opinion is that the person (presumably Jasper), who checks to see if what his fellow smokers say is "unintelligible," is doing so to satisfy himself that whatever HE might have said, under the influence, also is unintelligible. He doesn't want to have given away any secrets or secret plans he might have been dreaming about. "Wherefore 'unintelligible' is again the comment of the watcher, made with some reassured nodding of his head and a gloomy smile."
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In chapter two, Dickens characterizes Edwin Drood as young ..."As the boy (for he is little more) lays a hand on Jaspers shoulder....." I agree with you, Joan, that his view of the arrangement with Rosa is one of hoping for the best. He seems to be good hearted but not inclined to think about things very much. Both he and Rosa seem to feel somewhat doomed in the relationship because of the fact that it is not their own choice. They both seem fond of one another but hate the fact that they've been bound to one another since infancy by the wishes of their fathers.
Jasper appears to genuinely love (has devoted affection for) his nephew Drood. Does he?
From Chapter 2: "...Mr. Jasper stands still, and looks on intently at the young fellow... Once for all, a look of intentness and intensity -- a look of hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection -- is always, now and ever afterwards, on the Jasper face whenever the Jasper face is addressed in this direction. And whenever it is so addressed, it is never, on this occasion or on any other, dividedly addressed; it is always concentrated."
Why refer to "the Jasper face"? It made me think of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," although that novel was written 16 years after this one.
Even if Jasper has real affection for Drood, he could use that to mask his feelings for Rosa. Why does he have Pussy's portrait on his wall? Because it is the artwork of his nephew or because of the subject of the work?
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I think that Dickens' use of the present tense, especially in the first section of the book, helps draw the reader into the story, when the tendency might be for the reader to try to distance him/herself from the scenes and action. I didn't pay careful attention to see when Dickens' switches to past tense but he seems to go back and forth a bit later in the book.
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JoanP,
Lascars? Hmmm, why were the lascars even mentioned. How many of the Americans who awaited each chapter knew what a "lascar" was???
Adoannie: I think many American readers of the time would have been aware of the Lascars as they were evident in every port around the globe. They were vital to the economy of shipping companies and most ships had a large component of crew made up of Lascars and Chinese. Sadly the Chinese sailors were seen as the lowest form of humanity while the Lascars were believed to be sub-human and treated accordingly.
I think Dickens mentions the China-man and Lascar and a haggard woman as occupants in the opium den to illustrate the sort of 'low' company our man Jasper must associate with to obtain his opium fix and Dickens knew the majority of his readers would understand the reference.
Marcie: I didn't think of Jasper (I'm sure it is Jasper) being concerned about giving away any secrets whilst under the influence of the drug - but on re-reading just now I'm sure you're right. If he had had any dark plans he would want to be sure his mutterings were indeed 'unintelligible'
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I wasn't at all surprised to find the uncle Jasper to be only 6 years older than his nephew as I come from a large family myself - I was aged 10 and my youngest brother was only 4 when our eldest nephew was born.
I think Jasper envies his young nephew, Edwin - his fiancee, his career and his prospects - going off to Egypt as an engineer...while Jasper himself detests his own life ...no whirl or uproar around me, no distracting commerce or calculation, no risk, no change of place, myself devoted to the art I pursue, my business my pleasure...I hate it. The cramped monotony of my existence grinds me away by the grain... he really is an unhappy man.
Miss Twinkleton's establishment would have been hard to take but then the young ladies wouldn't know any alternative by which to compare. I don't know how I would have got on there but I really would have objected had I been sent to the 'parallel establishment' run by the late Mrs Sapsea (formerly Miss Brobity) if the style of dictation she favoured and her admiration for the 'intellect' of Mr. Sapsea is anything to go by - but then, they say that love is blind. Poor Ethelinda.
JoanP Prague and then London - Love it.
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Damn, I just lost a whole post because I looked up a spelling of a word. I fear that the book I received has no footnotes but it seems with all of you, I will not need them. I love the names Dickens has given his characters. Rose Bud, AKA Pussy. Oh my, please is that ever a play on words. Mr. Crispsparkle makes me smile. All orderly and fresh, glittering in his cheerful way.
The opium den is unbelievable, I had to read the chapter 3 times to make sense of who was who(m). The old hag makes out very well it appears to me. She carries on and complains about business being slow and the "goods" being expensive as she sucks in the dreamlike effects of the drug, at the other's expense. She's smarter than she looks, I'm sure (as all drug dealers are -she knows how to play the game to the best of her advantage.) As Maryal stated already, he just didn't think that these folks were "in his social standing." Hmmm, not good enough for his social status BUT OK to share a deleterious drug and a narcoleptic afternoon.
I shall return after I cook but for now, I am going to pout about my brilliant (and forever lost 1st post.)
I agree with you Gum, we must keep an eye out for Jasper and his antipathy towards his nephew. His "concentrated" face can only mean he is fiercely trying to cover up his jealous dislike he feels toward Edwin.
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I just finished reading all of your posts. I am so glad that I decided to read them! After reading the first chapter, I was reading to give up. Now, I am so glad that I didn't dispose of the book, on my Kindle.
I really thought that most of my brain had dried up, and died. It reassures me to know that several of you didn't understand the first chapter, either. I had just about decided that I was not intelligent enough to understand this book!
Now, I will reread Chapter One, and try to catch up over this Labor Day weekend.
Sheila
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sereneSheila- it says something of this group that we don't quite "GET" the den of iniquity- the opium den. Hang in there.
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Cheer up, Shiela, the worst is over. Aside from some temporary confusion as to who the people are at the start of chapter 2, it's smooth sailing now.
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Why Sheila!! I'm so glad you read the posts before you gave up. The first chapter IS confusing. It makes sense only when you know that we're in a shabby opium den (probably in London) watching the after-effects of four strangers who've been smoking opium. Dickens has mixed in the Oriental (Asian) elements--the spike, the elephants, a sultan, the cymbals to give it the flavor of the exotic. Appendix 1 (Penguin edition) explains that 80-90 % of England's supply of opium came from Turkey, so Dickens has carefully selected these elements.
I'm so glad you came back anyway. Pat H is correct--smooth sailing from now on except for possible confusion about characters.
Marcie--I too never considered that Jasper might have been listening to the "indecipherable" mumblings of his fellow addicts because he worried what HE might have said--or cried out--in his opium dream I completely missed that possibility. I saw only an arrogant man who assumed that no one from the lower classes could possibly have interesting dreams.
Marcie and Joan P both point to the information about Jasper being "two-faced." We must watch him carefully! There's another character in these first few chapters who leads a dual existence--can you ferret him/her out?
Thanks, Gum, for the information about Lascars being well-known all over the world. London was a major port and they must have been a common sight there. American readers on the East Coast and West Coast would have known who they were--and for the rest, dictionaries.
Alf (Andy)--so sorry you lost your original post. I've lost a few myself. I love your observations about how well the "old hag" is making out. Not only does she prepare the wonderful mixture (claiming that no one knows how to prepare it as well) but she partakes herself. And I enjoy your remark about Jasper, "Hmmm, not good enough for his social status BUT OK to share a deleterious drug and a narcoleptic afternoon."
A narcoleptic afternoon followed by Evening services back in Cloisterham! And then a meeting with his dear nephew when he is still having some after-effects of his indulgence.
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I listened to Chapters one and two online. Then my book came, and I read the rest last night.
I read Chapter two again -- it's interesting the different impressions I got from llistening and reading it. First, the audio chapters online are abridged. Usually, I don't like abridgements, but in Dickens' case, it's a mercy! I found it impossible to follow the conversation at the beginning of Chapter 2 aloud: difficult enough reading it, and going back over it. But D's humor came through more for me when I heard it -- not his broad satire, which is as easy to miss as an elephant, but the wry little comments at the end of sentances. I think when I read him, this ocean of words washes over me, and I zone out a bit.
Some things sound even much worse aloud. If Drood had talked about "Pussy" one more time, I would have thrown up. What do you think of that character? Not only are her name and nickname horrible, but she doesn't anywhere near resemble a human being to me.
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Forgot to say that I think Marcie's point about Dickens' use of the present tense in these chapters to make the story more immediate is excellent. We will be staying in present tense for some time. Look at the verbs in the narrator's sections. Always present tense.
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Serenesheila, I'm glad you're sticking with us.
JoanK, that's interesting that you're forming different opinions from your reading and listening to the book.
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Oh how I wish that I could listen to this on Audiotape. Like you, Maryal, i love to be read to. I just finished listening to the 16 CDs of The Echo Maker and enjoyed it immensely. I would love to hear the nuances in the voices of the characters.
I love Dickens prose how apt is this sentence? An ancient city, Cloisterham and no meet dwelling-place for anyone with hankerings after the noisy world. A monotonous, silent city, deriving an earthy flavour throughout from its Cathedral crypt,.....
Oh to be able to write like that and conjure up such wonderful imagery.
The whole bloody city like a convent, confined and reclusive. Brrrr, that whole sentence gives me shivers.
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Alf, the whole of Cloisterham gives me shivers. What a fate, to be stuck there!
You lead into a point I was going to make about Dickens' language in this book. It's been a long time since I read any Dickens (I think the last time was rereading "David Copperfield" in 1992) but it seems to me that it isn't quite typical. There are a lot more bits of dry, understated humor and sneaky ironical touches than I remember. Is this so, Deems, or have I just forgotten. Either way, I'm enjoying all the amusing little touches.
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No, you are correct Pat. I never remember enjoying Dickens like this. It was too many years ago, I guess, or perhaps the humor was lost on my young mind.
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I agree with you, Alf and Pat. I am enjoying the humor. Some of the details are very funny. When Edwin visits Rosa she comes into the room with a silk apron thrown over her head. She says, " 'it is so absurd to have the girls and the servants scuttling about after one, like mice in the wainscot; and it is so absurd to be called upon!' The apparition appears to have a thumb in the corner of its mouth while making this complaint."
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Good evening, I’m still in, tho it was touch and go during that first chapter. Honestly, the thought of opium never entered my head. All I could think of was “unintelligible.”
I’m behind in the reading, trying to get afloat with Latin first, and had to finish my f2f book before our monthly meeting today. But, am now up to chapter three and am ready to go on.
I’ve read very little Dickens, and what I know of his life is from Elliot Engel’s delightful lecture several years ago at a local dinner/speaker club. A bit of a scoundral, was he?
Gum, thank you for the link on lascars. Another unfamiliar term. I don’t doubt they were considered the lowest of the low. And all the posts are great. Like Sheila, they give me courage to go on. I now have the book – in print, and am also looking online at our library’s “Net Library” at The Puzzle of Dickens’ Last Plot by Andrew Lang – pub. 1905, appears to be an early version of Cliff notes – which makes for a chicken/egg thing. Probably better to read the read Dickens first, then see what went over your head.
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Pedln, I'm very glad that you're still with us. That first chapter seems to have been a stumbling block for many.
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Thanks, Deems, for the link or suggestion for trying the site where I was able to download the first chapter into my I-Tunes folder and then listen to it. I am a real fan of audio books so this is right up my alley. I am hoping my computer downloaded the whole book while I slept last night.
When one listens to a book being read by an actor, its just like attending a play.
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MORNing everyone!!! I'm off to the doctor in a few, but a couple of things before I go.
I was talking last night with my daughter about the first chapter and how much of a stumbling block it is--we don't know where we are, who the characters are, what they are doing together, and worst of all the incomprehensible dreams they are having and we are being given a taste of.
What a risk, I thought, for any author to begin in a way that would turn off readers.
Then I remembered.
Dickens was enormously popular in his day, almost from the very beginning. Drood is the last novel he worked on. By that time he had traveled in America, had given many dramatic readings of portions of his novels (some say it was these readings that did him in), was known all over the English-speaking world, and beyond.
He was so famous he could have written that first chapter in Sanskrit and his readers would have not been deterred.
I doubt very much that he would have taken such a risk when he was a young, hardly known author.
Andy--was it you who loves listening to books??
If you click on the link in the header which says "several places on the internet," you will see a list that Marcie has compiled. Scroll down, and you will see Librivox--you can listen to the whole book, chapter by chapter, and it is wonderfully read by a fellow from Kent who does all manner of voices.
As Annie says, it's like listening to a play.
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Oh Maryal, thank you, thank you! I love it! I just listened to the first 4 chapters on the Librivox link after downloading it. It adds so much dimension to a story to hear it spoken aloud.
Can't you just see all of us in the 1860's sitting around anxiously awaiting the newest installment of Dicken's story? It's exciting to think of it that way. We are discussing the story just as it was written. Here we are, a bunch of folk, sitting around giving our own opinion as to what in the world Charlie was trying to tell us.
He certainly wasn't telling a love story with Rosa BUD and Edwin, in answer to question #7.
7. What difficulties do Edwin and Rosa seem to be having as they walk out together from the Nun's House? Are they the typical engaged couple?
In today's world Mr. Dickens would have said that they were not "happy campers."
She is rude in her false "polite" little quips when addressing Edwin. She's cultured and polished but condenscending when she speaks to her betrothed on their walk. Wanting him to pretend, it's as if she wished that they were two different people. I dislike her immensely in this chapter.
"You shall pretend that you are engaged to someone else and I'll pretend that I am not engaged to anybody, and then we shan't quarrel."
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That is so disdainful! She's an egotist to boot; "I feel as if it (the house) would miss me when I am gone so far away, so young!" The haughty little wench! :P
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Andy--Glad that you are enjoying hearing Drood read aloud. The reader is very good, isn't he? It really does help with the dialogue, causes me to notice things I might read right over. And reader does such a good job presenting the different voices.
I agree that it's probably not the happiest thing in the world to be affianced from birth. No fun and games in finding out who you will marry but instead always knowing--and knowing that the choice has been taken away from you.
Rosa says it well (I find her more approachable if I don't call her Rosa Bud or, worse, Rosebud) in Chapter 3:
"Ah!" cries Rosa, shaking her head and bursting into real tears. "I wish we could be friends! It's because we can't be friends, that we try one another so. I am a young little thing, Eddy, to have an old heartache; but I really, really have, sometimes. Don't be angry. I know you have one yourself, too often. We should both of us have done better, if What is to be had been left What might have been. I am quite a serious little thing now, and not teasing you. Let each of us forbear, this one time, on our own account, and on the other's."
I think of Rosa, so young to be married, so tied to the marriage, so deprived of choice. She knows that Eddy also suffers from the engagement, but he will have a career in Egypt, and she will have only him and the house and presumably children.
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Well, I was able to download the whole book and it is delightful to listen to so I am still in Chapter 3 but moving right along.
I have company for the three days weekend so won't be able to comment much but will keep on reading.
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Good to hear, Annie, since mostly I'm hearing crickets around here this morning. I expect that Labor Day weekend might be a little slow what with travels and company. Good to hear that you have downloaded the whole book and are sticking with us. I'd miss you if you left.
Good morning, all. I too am busy this weekend, but will check in now and again to see if the conversation has picked up.
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I didn't quite get the "double life" of Miss Twinkleton. Apparently she had a suitor in the past. In the evenings she recalls a life that may not have been as proper as the one she leads as head of the seminary for girls. I might be missing something or this aspect of her existence isn't as developed as Dickens might have made it. It doesn't seem developed enough to parallel the "two lives" of Jasper.
That Sapsea sure is a jackass, according to Dicken's definition. He certainly is full of himself. His inscription on his wife's tombstone is priceless. It sounds like his wife was a timid person who didn't actually say "yes" to his marriage proposal but was sort of talked into it by him since she didn't say no. Maybe she was willing to accept a comfortable material living similar to Pride and Prejudice's Charlotte who married Mr. Collins, the cleric whose patron was the Lady Catherine de Berg.
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Accoerding to Sapsea, his wife was happy just admiring him. But that's HIS version. We'll never know.
Dickens' description of Rosa reminds me of Tolstoy's description of the young Natasha in War and Peace. Except that Tolstoy's description works and Dickens' doesn't work (for me). Of course Natasha matures -- we'll see whether Rosa does as we go along.
In any case, she is certainly upset over the thought of marrying Edwin in a year. He is too, but won't admit it.
I too am beginning to appreciate Dickens a lot more. He still really annoys me (as you can tell by the grouchy tone of my posts -- sorry), but I actually found myself reading ahead, and had to force myself to put the book down.
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Rosa certainly seems childish, and rather annoying to deal with--imagine greeting a visitor with your head hidden under an apron. But she's using these tricks to avoid facing up to real life. And she seems to be attracted to Jasper. I agree, Deems, I feel sorry for her. Anyway, how could anyone learn to be a grown-up in Miss Twinkleton's school?
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Marcie, I don't understand the double life of Miss Twinkleton either, but it seems sad. She gets gussied up in the evening to sit and think about her lost love?
What a dreary dreay place Cloisterham must be. Dickens does a wonderful job a painting the description. It's dusty and dirty and nothing ever changes, not even the stuff in the pawn shop.
I'm still moving very slowly, but getting more in tune with what's going on. Miss Rosa Bud is certainly the center of everyone's attention. I wonder how the other girls feel about her.
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There are a lot of pretty, childish, silly heroines in Victorian literature. Look at Dora in "David Copperfield". In DC, though, Dickens shows how irritating it is to be married to someone that silly.
By the way, my book has a cast of characters in the front, and they are listed with all the men first, then the women.
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What a dreary dreay place Cloisterham must be. Dickens does a wonderful job a painting the description. It's dusty and dirty and nothing ever changes, not even the stuff in the pawn shop.
I'm with you, Pedln, it sounds like an awful hole. It's surprising it can support a store that just sells Turkish delight. For anyone who doesn't know it, Turkish delight is a sort of gluey, gelatinous candy, thickened with cornstarch, flavored with rosewater, and thickly coated with powdered sugar to keep it from sticking together. Rosa would definitely have to lick the "dust of delight" off her fingers.
There is a Dorothy Sayers mystery in which someone is suspected of having put powdered arsenic in the coating of Turkish Delight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Delight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Delight)
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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Good points, everyone, about Rosa. The other girls seem to dote on Rosa. She seems to be the pretty, petite baby doll of the seminary. Everyone's way of treating her might make it difficult (unnecessary) for her to grow up. I agree, PatH, that she is trying to avoid facing her fate.
I don't think that she is attracted to Jasper. I think she is afraid of him.
PatH, Thanks for the info about the Dorothy Sayers mystery with possible poisoning by Turkish delight.
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I agree with Marcie about Rosa being afraid of Jasper. She urges Edwin to hurry when she hears the music from the cathedral, knowing that the service will soon be over and that the various clergymen and Jasper will be leaving. She must see a good deal of him because he is her music teacher--Jasper and Edwin discuss what progress she is making in her lessons.
I keep wanting to call Miss Twinkleton, MissTwinkletoes. She does have another life, separate from her dignified schoolmarm persona. At night she spruces up, enjoys the gossip of the town, and generally would be unrecognizable to the girls should they ever see her.
I also love the description of the first part of Edwin and Rosa's meeting where first Miss Twinkleton and later Mrs. Tisher appear in the room ostensibly to recover a needed item but actually to keep a close watch on the young couple lest anything disreputable be going on. The scene makes me laugh because when I was in college, we had a house mother who must have gotten her daily exercise by circumambulating the living room and the smaller alcoves which had couches. Here young women were allowed to talk with young men as long as they kept BOTH FEET on the FLOOR. Being a relaxed person who more than once had a leg up on the couch, I was told more than once that I must rearrange myself.
I agree that Rosa is the special pet of Miss Twinkletoes' school. The other girls are jealous of her having a caller. Edwin is allowed to see her only because they are engaged. Other young men who might know some of the girls are not allowed to come. What wonderful irony--the girls all envy Rosa and she envies them their freedom.
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LOL, Deems. Yes, the chaperoning scenes, with Miss Twinkleton having to come up with excuses for being in the room, were funny. Even though it must have been the custom not to have a girl/woman alone with a boy/man during Dickens era, he can still get amusement from the contrivance of a chaperone. I love your story about the requirement of having both feet on the floor!
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Yes, Rosa is definitely afraid of Jasper - I think he gives her the 'creeps' but it is more than that and possibly the first indication of Rosa being something more than a silly young thing. I thought the 'apron over the head' was too ridiculous - why didn't she fall down the stairs or something.
Of course Edwin and Rosa both feel irritated by their arranged engagement - Edwin regrets not being able to sow a few wild oats or at least to play the field and Rosa would like the experience of being feted by eligible young men. They like each other very much but would prefer the freedom to make their own choices.
I don't see Rosa as Natasha - Natasha was younger and her behaviour seemed right while Rosa's doesn't - but maybe that's just my Dickens prejudice.
Miss Twinkleton's evening persona where she loves to gossip with her friend, Mrs Tisher and relive the highlights of her past is the reflection of the true woman. She really isn't the repressive school marm her 'girls' see-I have the distinct impression that Miss Twink didn't always keep both of her feet on the floor.
I loved the line where Mrs Tisher's husband was generally believed to have been a 'hairdresser' - sounds like a musical comedy -My Fair Lady or something from Gilbert and Sullivan.
I used to love Turkish Delight - it was quite popular here when I was a 'sweet young thing' but one can't eat a lot of it - one of my sons once gave me a large box of the stuff - he got it from a friend of Turkish descent whose mother made it from an old genuine recipe for the Turkish restaurants - there was nothing 'gluey and gelatinous' about it....It was delicious and unlike anything I'd tasted before but there was lots of it and wow! was it sweet!
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Gum--You make Turkish Delight sound like something that I would love and must stay away from. It's yet another exotic element--candy from abroad--that so fascinated Dickens and his fellow Englishmen at a time when the Empire was at its height. The sun never set on the British Empire at the time.
The Landless twins are described as having "darker" skin and are themselves exotic. They are from "abroad," have no relatives, and share an uncanny knowledge of what the other thinks.
Let's discuss Mr. Sapsea and Durdles today and tomorrow since it is almost time to move on to the next set of chapters. Sapsea is a terribly self-important man, the town auctioneer, who married late in life to a woman who "looked up" to him. Poor Ethelinda has left this world and gone to what is I hope a far happier one away from Mr. Sapsea.
Durdles fascinates me. He is, in some ways, the most Dickensian of the characters we have met so far, very much an individual. One of Dickens' talents as a writer was his ability to make even his minor characters come alive, as Durdles does for me. I think I'd recognize him on the street.
And what about YOU. Let's look at the last few chapters.
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Marcie, Deems, and Gumtree, I'm sure you're right about Rosa being afraid of Jasper; that fits better with her reluctance to be around when he comes out of the Cathedral than my theory (which was that she didn't want to meet the man she was starting to get fond of while she was with her fiance). The night before, Jasper gave Edwin a warning. Edwin took it to mean not to follow Jasper's bad example of turning to drugs because of his dissatisfaction with life, but he was obviously misunderstanding. The warning more likely means that Jasper is going to satisfy his ambition by taking Rosa away from Edwin, presumably thus getting hold of whatever fortune she has too.
Gumtree, I obviously had a substandard batch of Turkish Delight--it was never popular around here, and I've only tried it once. I need to find someone with a traditional recipe.
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I think that the Durdles character is very interesting and funny. His arrangement with the boy, Deputy, to throw stones at him until he heads for home, is unique. He's got a special skill of being able to tell, by tapping with his hammer, what's walled in beneath the cathedral. He has a dignity about him. He isn't taken in by Sapsea.
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No, Durdles isn't taken in by Sapsea - I wonder who would be.
Interesting that in a way Durdles is giving Deputy a purpose in life by getting the youngster to hurl stones at him for money and under an arrangement whereby he must warn Durdles first - rather than Deputy just throwing stones at everything that moves in a pointless and destructive way as he had been doing. Durdles has perhaps taken the boy under his wing.
I must say that I didn't care for Dickens' description of Deputy as being 'hideous' when in fact all I can see is that he is merely poor and uncared for. Does being poor, dirty and dressed in rags make a child hideous or simply neglected? It may just be carelessness or haste on Dickens' part but he uses the word more than once.
Durdles is of uncertain temper andnever quite sober but he knows his trade - loved the part where he measured Sapsea's words and says 'it will come in to an eighth of an inch' - just imagine carving the monument stone and running out of space halfway through a word - reminded me of the old sewing samplers where the line spacing has been miscalculated and a word is split and continued on the line below.
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Halloa, GUM!! We are both awake at the same time. Excitement! Dickens may have used "hideous" to describe Deputy the street urchin, but he had great sympathy for such street Children. He has one in Bleak House, name of Jo, who comes in the plot quite frequently. Jo is treated with great sympathy though the description of him is much like the one of Deputy. Did you notice that all the boys who work as man servant at the Travellers' Twopenny are called "Deputy"? Poor little fellow doesn't even have a name to himself.
The footnote tells us that the Travellers' Twopenny was "a cheap lodging place providing shelter for a few pence. Such houses were characteristically crowded, unsanitary, afflicted with rats, and without adequate washing facilities."
I guess all the little Deputies picked up whatever odd jobs they could at the Twopenny. This particular one is lucky to have a job with Durdles, who sometimes forgets to go home.
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In chapter 6 we make the acquaintance of the very large and very loud Luke Honeythunder. He works at the "Haven of Philanthropy" of which a footnote tells us:
"The target of Dickens's satire is Exeter Hall in the Strand, London, a purpose-built convention centre which opened in 1831. This 'temple' of philanthropy with its 'votaries' and 'priesthood' seated 4000 delegates, and from May to June it served as the venue for the annual meetings of England's many charitable organizations. While Dickens himself worked energetically on behalf of various good causes, philanthropy combined with arrogance and hypocrisy angered him. 'It might be laid down as a very good general rule of social and political guidance, that whatever Exeter Hall champions, is the thing by no means to be done' (The Niger Expedition, Examiner, 19 August 1848)."
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Yes, Gum. Durdles has given Deputy an "enlightened object" at which to throw stones rather than aimlessly stoning everything in sight.
I agree, Deems, that Deputy isn't portrayed unsympathetically. He probably did look hideous with missing teeth and dressed in rags. He probably never had a bath in his life.
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Deems, apparently there were Philanthropic Societies during Dickens time. Dickens characterizes a professional philanthropist such as Luke Honeythunder as someone who was more talk than action, and what actions he did take were not in the best interest of those he professed to be helping. Dickens is a great revealer of hypocrisy.
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With Sapsea and Durdles we see another characteristic Dickens trick. He makes his minor characters memorable not only by their names (I bet you can't think of another author who would name a character Durdles) but also by some hallmark characteristics of appearance or mannerism that tend to be mentioned a lot. Sapsea has a trick of "a certain gravely flowing action with his hands, as if he were presently going to Confirm the individual with whom he holds discourse. Durdles is white with stone dust, has all sorts of special pockets, including one for the always present 2-foot rule, and is never seen without the small bundle holding his dinner. He goes aroud tapping at everything, and discovering hidden graves everywhere.
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If it's OK with everyone, I'll wait until tomorrow to move on to the next chapters (7-12). It is Labor Day, and I have some labor to do for school as well as some fun to wedge in.
There's something about Durdles that I like. Yes, PatH, he is a minor character, but he comes to life for me because I can see him (you mention the stone dust all over him as well as all the pockets and the dinner bundle) and because I admire his skill in locating dead bodies even when they have moldered away to just bones. Did you notice that he mentions National education, asking Jaspers if he is in favor?
A footnote tells us: "Until the Education Act of 1870 introduced secular rate-supported elementary schools, England and Wales lacked a national system of education, the development of which had been slowed by religious conflicts over the state's role. Schooling depended instead on voluntary efforts organized principally by religious, philanthropic and private bodies."
A snippet from Dickens' personal experience indicates how he must have felt about education. When he was a boy and his father was sent to Marshalsea Prison for debt, Charles worked at the Warrens Blacking Factory to help the family. When his father was released, his mother wanted him to continue working there, but his father intervened and Dickens went to a day school in London for three years. He puts the blacking factory into David Copperfield and a family's experience at Marshalsea into Little Dorrit.
Dickens knew from his own experience the suffering and helplessness of children.
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'He goes aroud tapping at everything, and discovering hidden graves everywhere.'
Has this become a hobby of his? The cathedral complex certainly offers Durdles lots of scope to practice his activity. The place sounds like a huge charnel house, with someone buried in every nook and cranny for a thousand years and more. Perhaps Durdles will be tapped before too long to find a missing body. After all, Jasper does wonder about Durdles' 'remarkable accuracy with which you would seem to find out where people are buried.'
And why Jasper's peculiar interest in Durdles expertise? Makes the rounds in the crypt with Durdles. Is Jasper looking for an accomplice in some ghoulish activity in which there will be a need to hide a body?
And just to lighten the gloom down in the crypt, Dickens throws in this bit of humor. But suppress the laughter. It's not fitting in this place.
'Is there anything new down in the crypt, Durdles?' asks John Jasper.
'Anything old, I think you mean,' growls Durdle. 'It ain't a spot for novelty.'
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Well lookee there, it's Jonathan!! Welcome, Jonathan, and thank you for typing in Durdles' little joke. He's a dusty, stony old man who likes to keep himself well-fortified with whatever is in his dinner bundle (he's never seen without it) and a little something to drink in his bottle.
Today we move to our second set of six chapters. When we get to the end, we will be at the end of the third installment of the novel as it was originally published. You can expect that we will have something of a cliffhanger since Dickens wanted his readers to look forward to--and come back to--his next installment.
But first we must contemplate the evening entertainment around the piano with John Jasper playing while his pupil sings. See illustration above. See if you can you pick out all the characters, including the "china shepherdess" (Mrs. Crisparkle, the good canon's mother).
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I can't move on without laughing at Mr. Honeythunder. Crisparkle says "It is a most extraordinary thing that these philanthropists are always denouncing somebody. And it is another most extraordinary thing that they are always so violently flush of miscreants!"
Honeythunder is an extreme version of a type we all know--so sure they are right, so completely unaware of what people are really like or what they are thinking, the eternal wet blanket. Heaven help the victims of their benevolence!
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I'm glad you've joined the discussion, Jonathan. I agree with you that Jasper has an ulterior motive for hanging out with Durdles. Since no one but Durdles frequents the crypts below the cathedral, it would be a good place for a dasterdly dead and/or the covering up of one.
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The picture: a few clues from the book (Drood is holding the fan, etc) make it pretty certain who's who. From left to right: Neville Landless, John Jasper (at the piano), Rosa Bud (farther back), Helena Landless (you see all of her), Miss Twinkleton, Edwin Drood (standing, with the fan), Mr. Crisparkle (seated), and Mrs. Crisparkle (almost out of the picture).
Neville and Helena have distinctly darker complexions than the others. This is more obvious in my book, where the pictures are darker and the lines more detailed.
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Good job on the illustration, Pat. I concur. Miss Twinkleton looks just like her name :-)
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It looks like PatH has identified the persons in "At the Piano." I love illustrations in books--too bad they have almost disappeared. I especially appreciate illustrations that show that the artist has actually read the passage and correctly placed the people as Fildes seems to do throughout. And, yes, Neville and Helena are slightly darker than the others. They spent all that time in Ceylon and must be tanned. Or perhaps we are to wonder about their actual parentage.
I too find Honeythunder humorous. His very presence makes it necessary for the others at dinner to find all manner of reasons that he must get going in order not to miss the omnibus. The man holds forth at dinner and no one else can get a word in edgewise. One wonders how Neville came to be attracted to Rosa at all. Perhaps there were some small side-conversations that Dickens does not report. Or maybe she's just so darn cute that any young man would be smitten.
OK, folks, who would like to jet on over to my house to help me grade the first set of papers from my two classes? I still have more than half a class to go and have promised to get them back tomorrow. Tomorrow itself is a horror, one of our "early schedule" days involving beginning an hour early and running all six periods back to back. This means that first period, normally at 7:55 will begin at 6:55. These short weeks are usually something to look forward to, but this one is turning mean at the end.
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And, yes, Neville and Helena are slightly darker than the others. They spent all that time in Ceylon and must be tanned. Or perhaps we are to wonder about their actual parentage.
Yes, I think we are meant to suppose that Neville and Helena are of mixed blood. They are "very dark, and very rich in colour...something untamed about them both...." Elsewhere, Neville refers to his own "tigerish blood", and Edwin's final insult to him in their quarrel is a pretty direct reference to it.
This affects our predictions of the plot. Neville is in love with Rosa, but by the conventions of most writers then, he is not going to get to marry her. Even if he turns out to be very noble and honorable, the most he can hope for is to make some noble sacrifice to secure her happiness with someone else.
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Deems, I don't envy your teaching schedule today. Six periods back to back, starting at 6:55!
This affects our predictions of the plot. Neville is in love with Rosa, but by the conventions of most writers then, he is not going to get to marry her. Even if he turns out to be very noble and honorable, the most he can hope for is to make some noble sacrifice to secure her happiness with someone else.
Oh, I hadn't thought through the mixed race issue. You're probably right, Pat, about the prospects for Neville and Rosa. Maybe that is part of why he is so violently upset with Edwin Drood for taking Rosa for granted.
When describing Rosa's relationship with the other girls and everyone else at Miss Twinkleton's seminary for girls, Dickens says that she is spoiled only to the extent of expecting the type of kindness that is always shown to her. He says something like she has true affection for others so is not just a pretty doll.
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Dickens believed in mesmerism and he himself learned to use hypnosis to try to heal family and friends who were ill.
Somehow this seems related to me in the psychic ties that he presents in this novel. Helena and Neville have some kind of mysterious telepathic power where they share each other's thoughts and feelings. Jasper stares intently at various people throughout the novel in a sinister way and sometimes smiles afterward in a creepy way. Rosa confesses to Helena that she feels that Jasper has invaded her thoughts and can overpower her even when he is not present.
I think that the "Jasper face" adds a strong element of foreboding and scariness to the novel.
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I'm in a situation akin to Deems - too much to do and no time to post -
will come in tomorrow (she says hopefully)
BTW Perhaps we should remember that Neville and Helena are twins which could account for their telepathic rapport.
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Gum, I have heard the theory that twins have ESP.
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BTW Perhaps we should remember that Neville and Helena are twins which could account for their telepathic rapport.
Gum, I have heard the theory that twins have ESP.
Yes, Gumtree and Marcie, you're quite right. As soon as Neville said "You don't know, sir, yet, what a complete understanding can exist between my sister and me, though no spoken word--perhaps hardly as much as a look--may have passed between us.", I thought "Oh, goody, another story with the psychic closeness of twins". I love stories with the psychic closeness of twins, even though I don't think there's anything to it.
Judging from my own experience, though twins are often on the same wavelength and can guess what the other is thinking, it's not any sort of ESP, just much shared experience and outlook and familiarity. The same sort of thing occurs with some couples who have been happily married for a long time.
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What is Dickens trying to say with this strange tale? Is he, for example, trying to depict the tragedy of an arranged marriage? Or why the mystery of Edwin Drood? There are at least half a dozen other characters who are more mysterious than this bright, uncomplicated young man, about whom Jasper says:
'Look at him, see how he lounges so easily...the world is all before him where to choose. A life of stirring work and interest, a life of change and excitement, a life of domestic ease and love! Look at him!' Ch8
Of course Jasper is envious. Perhaps even jealous. But isn't everybody jealous of Drood over the beautiful Rosa? Certainly Neville, to the point of thinking murder. And now, in Chapter XI, we find Grewgious, speechless as usual, but nevertheless exclaiming:
'Lord bless me...I could draw a picture of a true lover's state of mind, to night....' and does so most convincingly. He's in love with Rosa! Well it was her mother, actually, years earlier. ('Good God, how like her mother she has become!')
Grewgious is in posession of the ring that came off the dead finger of Rosa's mother. He's reluctant to part with it. Can there be any doubt that he himself would like to put it on Rosa's finger? He wants it returned if for any reason Drood is unsuccessful in that marriage rite.
How jealous Grewgious was of Rosa's father, when he lost the woman he loved. And now, he still wonders...'whether he (Rosa's father) ever so much as suspected that someone doted on her, at a hopeless, speechless distance, when he struck in and won her. I wonder whether it ever crept into his mind who that unfortunate someone was!...I wonder whether I shall sleep tonight!'
Poor bewildered Grewgious. 'And if I do not clearly express what I mean by that, it is either for the reason that having no conversational powers, I cannot express what I mean, or that having no meaning, I do not mean what I fail to express. Which, to the best of my belief, is not the case.' What a sorry wooer he must have been.
What strange relationships in this tale. Even Grewgious has his seeming nemesis, his control. The 'fabulous Familiar,' Bazzard, the 'pale, puffy-faced, dark-haired person of thirty, with big dark eyes that wholly wanted lustre...this attendant was a mysterious being, possessed of some strange power over Mr. Grewgious.'
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Thanks Marcie and PatH and Gum and Jonathan for keeping the fire smoldering around here. I'm particularly concerned about whether or not (and we will never know, I fear) Neville and Helena are actually of mixed race or if Dickens has just given them slightly darker skin to make them more exotic. Their deceased mother could have been Spanish, for example. Their parents are, however, conveniently dead and though Neville tells of his harsh treatment at the hands of guardians, we get no information about their lineage.
If there were any suggestion that they were of mixed race, would Mr. Crisparkle (our representative of what was known at the time as "muscular Christianity") agree to take Neville on as a tutee? And would they be entertained socially? I think that maybe they are a little darker--and Neville somewhat "tigerish" simply to make them more foreign and exotic. But who knows?
Jonathan calls out attention to Mr. Grewgious, for whom I admit I have great admiration. The poor man says he has no imagination and has to make lists in order to remember what topics he needs to discuss with Rosa, dutifully crossing them off as he attends to each, but I find something about lovable about him. Perhaps it is his kindness--and yes, we find out that once he fell in love with Rosa's mother so he has a bit of the romantic in him. Of course he never dared to actually approach the woman and make an offer.
It does seem that he hates giving up the ring, not because of its monetary value but because the beloved wore it until her death. For him it's a precious keepsake (and Lord of the Rings just ran through my head. Remember the scene when Gollum is calling the ring his "Precious"--I loved Gollum who had a real split personality, good Gollum and bad Gollum.)
And yes, Jonathan, isn't Bazzard, the clerk, an amazing character? Grewgious seems to feel that he must be kept happy all the time though he clearly is not the happy type. Another instance of Grewgious having a heart.
So many characters, and so interesting. Never mind whatever the mystery is, I wonder what use Dickens would have made of some of them had he lived to write the second half of the book.
I especially wonder what he might have done with Helena since she seems to be stable enough to keep Neville in line as well as being a confidante--and rather quickly--of young Rosa. And then there's Rosa herself--what would become of her?
I'd like Grewgious to have some sort of happy ending (remember we are endingless) and it would be nice if Mr. Crisparkle found a bride. He's a good man, kind, a good teacher who takes Neville under his wing and not only instructs him but tries to teach him how to control himself. He's also wonderfully sweet to his mother, the China shepherdess, pretending that he can't read letters and allowing her (she's proud of her keen eyesight) to read aloud to him. He even wears glasses which are of no use to him so that she will believe he has trouble reading without them.
Sorry for all the rambling. This is what I am like after a day like today. Not very good at self-editing when tired. Good at running on and on though.
And so to bed.
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Jonathan, I agree that there are several strange characters. Bazzard is very odd, as is his relationship with Grewgious, who seems to defer to him. I, too, like Grewgious. Even though he doesn't have the social graces, he takes his duties very seriously. He let's Rosa know that the wishes of her and Edwin's fathers for them to marry are not binding if they don't want the marriage for themselves. Even though Grewgious says he has no sentiment, I too think that he has a sentimental attachment to the ring that belonged to Rosa's mother, whom he loved from a distance.
Deems, I think your thoughts about the race Neville and Helena are important. I too want Mr. Crisparkle to find a bride and he seems very well suited to Helena. You raise the issue in my mind of what would be the point of Neville's studying with Crisparkle if Neville wasn't to be considered a gentleman by society.
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I googled "Ceylon" and found that the citizens of that country are of deep brown color. If Neville and Helena are citizens, then they would be of dark color. There are many Indian citizens in that country also and the twins' skin color might come from that part of the country's citizen.
Do we ever learn why their parents were living in Ceylon?? Were they part of that English group? The country was ruled by Great Britian in early years.
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It seems to me that Helena and Neville Landless were children of the Raj, that system of British imperialism as it related to India and Ceylon. Children of a mixed marriage, children without a country. Their father probably was a white, English administrator or soldier, while their native mother supplied the color. Stepfather was probably native and the cause of the childrens' resentments and bitterness. It seems to me the reader has to imagine many of the details on why these two feel cheated out of half their inheritance. Both provide a few clues in Chap VII, with their 'confidences':
'I (Neville) have had, sir, from my earliest years remembrance, to suppress a deadly and bitter hatred. This has made me secret and revengeful. I have been always tryrannically held down by the strong hand....I have been stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest posessions of youth, or remembrances, or good instincts....'
A few pages later, Helena is confiding to Rosa:
'I am a neglected creature, my dear, unacquainted with all accomplishments, , sensitively conscious that I have everything to learn, and deeply ashamed to own my ignorance.'
There's a tragedy somewhere in all this, a fallout perhaps of the glorious empire days. Suspected of still having something of the tiger in them by some, they nevertheless make a fine impression on Mr. Crisparkle:
'An unusually handsome lithe young fellow, and an unusually handsome lithe girl; much alike; both very dark, and very rich in colour; she of almost the gipsy type; something untamed about them both; a certain air upon them of hunter and huntress; yet withal a certain air of being the objects of the chase...slender, supple, quick of eye and limb; half shy, half defiant; fierce of look; an indefinable kind of expression...' are they going to pounce, or retreat for cover?
It wasn't alway easy to be a colonial in the empire days. I believe this is Dickens supplying a bit of commentary on same.
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Those are plausable ideas, Jonathan, on why Neville and Helena grew up in Ceylon. Their mother died when they were little children and they lived with a step-father until he died and made them wards of Mr. Honeythunder. As to their race, on their first evening with Mr. Crisparkle Neville says to him. "I have been brought up among abject and servile dependents, of an inferior race, and I may easily have contracted some affinity with them. Sometimes, I don't know but that it may be a drop of what is tigerish in their blood."
Neville doesn't identify himself as from a race of a lower society but says he may have been influenced by the people he grew up with and THEIR tigerish blood.
There was a big coffee trade in Ceylon during the 1800s and many ex-British patriots lived there. It's possible, as you say, that Neville and Helena's father was British.
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I agree with everyone that it's important to pin down Neville and Helena as well as we can. I think they have to be of roughly similar class to the other main characters. Honeythunder was a "friend or connexion" of their stepfather. I doubt that either of them would have been accepted as students if they were not some sort of gentlefolk, or that they would have been accepted socially in the way they are. Their parents were probably part of the mass of English involved in running and exploiting the Empire.
What about race? Given the deplorable notions of the time, this is important. When Neville is pouring his heart out to Mr. Crisparkle as they walk back from seeing Honeythunder off, he makes a statement I find frustrating:
"And to finish with, sir: I have been brought up among abject and servile dependants, of an inferior race, and I may easily have contracted some affinity with them. Sometimes, I don't know but that it may be a drop of what is tigerish in their blood."
"As in the case of that remark just now," thought Mr. Crisparkle. (Presumably, Neville's remark that he was almost ready to murder his stepfather).
Neville regards the natives as inferior to himself, but what does the underlined sentence mean?
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Marcie, we were posting at the same time, on the same point. I agree, they have to be mostly British, but one of their parents could still be of mixed blood. To me the underlined sentence was somewhat obscure, and I was uncertain in what sense he had "contracted some affinity with them".
And Jonathan, I also didn't see your post while I was writing mine. You two said it much better.
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Pat and Jonathan, I think you are on the right track.
I think that the results of Neville's upbringing are as he describes: there are many deficiencies in his education and an underlying "me against the world" attitude and tendency to anger, revenge and physical confrontation. It's unclear to me whether Neville thought that he could actually "contract" the wild animal (tigerish) tendencies he describes as instinctual, "in the blood," of the lower social class people he grew up with, or whether he understood it was more of a metaphorical contraction--learned behavior on the part of all of them as a result of their cruel conditions. Neville acknowledges that his sister isn't like him in this way and he says to Mr. Crisparkle that his upbringing "has caused me to be utterly wanting in I don't know what emotions, or remembrances, or good instincts--I have not even a name for the thing..."
Neville is likely confused and ambivalent about the causes of his volatile feelings and lack of self-control.
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Neville has told Crisparkle that it's good that his stepfather died when he did or he might have killed him for his cruelty to his sister.
I think that Dickens is setting up Neville with possible motives for doing away with Edwin Drood and/or giving others (including Jasper) ammunition for pointing to Neville if anything happens to Drood and eliciting reasonable doubt about his innocence.
But that Jasper sure seems guilty to me. Are all of those things that Jasper appear to be doing, just red herrings? So far, I guess you could say that we're lead to believe that fishy or sinister things are going on with Jasper. Is there proof of anything?
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I find race in this very interesting. Of course I don't know what Dickens intended, but I want to give him credit and assume that he is introducing the subject, but so subtly that the reader can ignore it and still identify with the Landless's. At the least, he is introducing the subject of the stranger -- "not the stranger who is here today and gone tomorrow but the stranger who is here today and still here tomorrow" (Simmel). How do we deal with him, and he with us.
Interesting that Neville is "the stranger" from the very beginning, whereas Helena seems to be accepted from the very beginning.
Notice that Rosa, who is portrayed as such a child, when she needs to act, acts very sensibly -- first in finding out exactly what she needs to know about the arranged marraige, and later with Edwin.
I don't agree that Rosa's guardian is in love with rosa, except as a loving uncle might be. I thought I picked up vibes between him and Miss Twinkleton.
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Thanks everyone for all the discussion. You have given me much to think about. What interesting comments about Neville and Helena. I'm certain that Dickens had plans for them in the second half of the novel, especially for Helena.
Pat H--What with all this talk about there possibly being something tigerish in his blood, I wonder if Neville's rashness may be at least partially explained by the abuse he suffered as a child and his testosterone. Helena seems to have survived better. She was the one who organized their escapes when they were children. She was also beaten and abused. Dickens has reached a point in his life where he has come to appreciate strong women. No more little Doras (David Copperfield) here.
Since their last name is Landless, an English name (see prior comment on Dickens' mistress), the father must have been British, serving in Ceylon for one of the reasons you all have suggested.
Joan K--Yes, Rosa seems to have a little more inside her than the girlish, silly darling of the school. Her actions are sensible, and she now knows that her marriage to Edwin is not written in stone. There is a way out.
Both twins have learned to be watchful--the hunter and huntress image. Marcie--good point about Neville being a pupil of Crisparkle in order to take his place in society. I wish I knew more about the acceptance of people with darker skins in Victorian England. The Empire was far-flung, and certainly some children of the subordinated peoples did attend school in England. I have a colleague that I can bother on Monday to see what other information I can glean.
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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'she now knows that her marriage to Edwin is not written in stone. There is a way out.'
But is that what Rosa really wants? When Helena tells her that there is a fascination about her, Rosa replys, if only Edwin felt that way. She wants to be courted. Edwin also feels unhappy that their fathers prevented them from choosing each other. Perhaps some time in the future they will discover how much they mean to each other.
Joan, I don't think Rosa went to any trouble to find a way out of her predicament. It seems to me it was the guardian, Mr Grewgious, who came to her with the information that she was free to call it off with Edwin. Why? It seems that Mr. G would like to see her remain single.
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Perhaps you're right about Rosa's effort to find her way out. I was thinking more of the next chapter, which we haven't read yet -- got my chapters mixed up.
Perhaps we will never know how Dickens meant these young people to be "paired up". It seems clear that Edwin fancies Helena and Neville fancies Rosa. We don't know, do we, how Helena feels at all. I think Rosa just isn't ready to settle down into marraige.
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Good afternoon, all. I've been thumbing through my book to see if I could find a specific place where it is clear that Drood is to marry Pussy when he comes of age and then they will go off to Egypt where he will "turn on the lights," bring a little of the modern world to that benighted country (his opinion, not mine).
In searching I came upon two places that show Edwin in a not so favorable light. In Chapter 2, he admits to Jasper, "I am afraid I am but a shallow, surface kind of fellow, Jack, and that my headpiece is none of the best." Maybe that's part of the reason that I just can't warm to him. He is careless.
There's a wonderful illustration, facing p. 76 in the Penguin entitled "On dangerous ground." Neville and Edwin are partaking of some mulled wine which it takes Jasper quite a while to produce. I'm suspecting that he is adding some opium to it to assure that the two young men, already not fond of each other, might be fired up more easily. The illustration shows Jasper in the middle, gesturing to Edwin who is leaning back in a chair with his arms behind his head and remarking, "See where he lounges so easily, Mr. Neville! The world is all before him where to choose. A life of stirring work and interest, a life of change and excitement, a life of domestic ease and love! Look at him!"
Is that baiting or what?
After Edwin responds, the narrator inserts, "His speech has become thick and indistinct. Jasper, quiet and self-possessed, looks to Neville, as expecting his answer or comment. When Neville speaks, his speech is also thick and indistinct."
OK, what's going on in this scene and why does it make me like Edwin even less?
For one thing Jasper controls the conversation by occasionally asking questions, always intended to stir up the two younger men. He has doctored the mulled wine. Very little drinking has been done and yet speech has become slurred. Then after he gets them going, he drops out of the conversation, following it back and forth as one then the other speaks. Finally Edwin says "You may know a black common fellow, or a black common boaster, when you see him (and no doubt you have a large acquaintance that way); but you are no judge of white men." I shudder to think how he might treat the Egyptians he is to work among.
And then Neville throws the dregs of his wine at Drood and is about to throw the goblet too when Jasper catches his arm.
Back to why I'm critical of Edwin. He seems careless to me; he takes little note of how other people might feel (perhaps Rosa has picked up on this characteristic as well--since he seems quite unaware that she is dreading going to Egypt); he's self-assured and likely to turn into an arrogant man. He reminds me of Tom and Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. At the very end of that book, Nick Carroway, the narrator, comments that their main problem was that they were careless. They broke other people and then moved on. Carelessness is their chief crime.
But what do you think?
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DEEMS:"I'm suspecting that he is adding some opium to it to assure that the two young men, already not fond of each other, might be fired up more easily".
hOW CLEVER OF YOU! I missed that completely! I see we have to read this book very closely. I'll bet there are all kinds of things like that that I (at least) am not seeing at all.
I'll have to look and see if it's Jasper who is fanning the fire of dislike that follows Neville after this incident.
I haven't been reading the notes in my Penguin edition: it's much too distracting while I'm reading. But since I've finished the next section early, I thnk I'll go back, and pick them up. I see this book repays more careful reading than I've been giving it.
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Yes, I'm sure Jack has put opium in the mulled wine. He drinks the wine too, but he's an addict, and would have a much greater tolerance. Opium is a mixture of alkaloids, so it probably tastes pretty bitter, but mulled wine is heated with sugar and spices like cinnamon and cloves, so maybe that would disguise it.
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Deems, I'm with you about Edwin. He's annoyingly offhand and supercilious. He's already admitted he isn't a particularly good engineer, but he refers to his coming job as "Going to wake up Egypt a little". And he treats Rosa very patronizingly. He says of their coming marriage that although things are somewhat flat now, "I have no doubt of our getting on capitally then, when it's done and can't be helped".
Rosa was already looking for a way out when Mr. Grewgious came down to Cloisterham. Grewgious came down in part to tell her that the engagement was not binding, but Rosa asked him about it before he brought up the subject.
Later, Grewgious talks to Edwin in London. Its pretty funny; Grewgious sentimentally describes all the wonderful emotions an engaged man feels for his beloved, not noticing that Edwin is getting more and more uncomfortable, because he doesn't feel that way at all.
I don't think Grewgious is in love with Rosa; he's still in love with her mother, and Rosa looks like her, but that's all. He's reluctant to give up the ring because it was the mother's.
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Joan K--Thanks, but I've read through these chapters twice (and have gone back and looked things up) and the scene between the three men intrigues me. Jasper is really running the show. He didn't need to point out how much Edwin has going for him and especially not to Neville who he knows has just been in some kind of argument with Edwin.
Pat H--Thank you. "Supercilious" is exactly the word I was looking for. And we must remember that Jasper, while in process of needling Neville about all that Edwin has to look forward to, is also making us aware of his own jealousy of his nephew. Not only is he going to get Rosa, but he will have an exciting life in an exotic place, far away from Cloisterham which we already know Jasper detests. I wonder why Jasper decided to settle there, as well as why he decided on his profession since he so is unhappy. He all but confesses to Edwin not only that he has been taking opium but also that he has a pain. He doesn't mention what kind of pain, but he does go into detail about how dull his life is. I suspect that his pain is psychological. He is not a happy puppy.
There's so much more to know about these characters, and we only have half a novel. Ah, the frustration.
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Wonderful posts. So many provocative ideas to reply to. Yes, every nod and every wink in the text is significant. And subject to interpretation. What a tale. My imagination was caught by the following scenario.
'I regard Durdles as a character', says Mr. Sapsea, a bit of a character himself, the auctioneer, who patterns his manner and speech on those of the Dean of the cathedral, and is sometimes taken for him.
How would you like to do 'a moonlight expedition with Durdles among the tombs, vaults, towers, and ruins,' which Dickens chose as the setting for his tale?
Jasper would like to. 'I have had some day-rambles with this extraordinary old fellow, and we are to make a moonlight hole-and-corner exploration to-night.' And Jasper gets himself into the mood. With great anticipation, he goes home to his piano, and ' there with no light but that of the fire, he sits chanting choir-music in a low and beautiful voice, for two or three hours; in short, until it has been for some time dark, and the moon is about to rise.'
Off they go, Jasper and Durdles, to walk among the ghosts of the cathedral. Are you ready, asks Jasper.
'I am ready, Mister Jarspers. Let the old uns come out if they dare, when we go among their tombs. My spirit is ready for 'em.'
Little does Dardles suspect that it's the laced spirits in the bottle he gets from Jasper that will put him to sleep, allowing Jasper to seek his own excitement in the spooky crypt. What does he hope to find? While the drugged Dardles dreams. But what an hallucinogenic bust. In a fine example of humorous English understatement, Dickens says only:
'It is not much of a dream, considering the vast extent of the domains of dreamland, and their wonderful productions.'
That is so funny, but what was Jasper up to while Durdles dreamed? He himself goes off to London's opium dens for his hyper-dreams.
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Imagine being dumped in a place like Cloisterham. How long will it be before Helena and Neville try another escape? It will be...what...their fourth or fifth attempt? They obviously have been shunted about, before landing in Mr. Honeythunder's lap. No family friend this. Just a handy philanthropist with whom to leave two unhappy campers. Neville doesn't even know enough about Mr. Honeythunder to want to murder him.
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Question 14: examples of foreshadowing in "A Night with Durdles":
The chapter is crammed with foreshadowing, but I'll start with one, when Jasper is walking out of Durdles' house with D.
"'Ware that there mound by the yard-gate, Mister Jarsper."
"I see it. What is it?"
"Lime."
Mr Jasper stops, and waits for him to come up, for he lags behind. "What you call quick-lime?"
"Ay!" says Durdles; "quick enough to eat your boots. With a little handy stirring, quick enough to eat your bones."
Big red flag to a mystery addict. Quicklime is commonly used in old mystery stories to dissolve bodies, probably even works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide)
Quotes from above:
"It has traditionally been used in the burial of bodies in open graves, to hide the smell of decomposition"
"Furthermore, quicklime is used in epidemics, plagues, and disasters to disintegrate bodies in order to help fight the spread of disease."
My one quibble is having a pile of it out in the open in the wet British climate. Quicklime, calcium oxide--CaO--reacts vigorously with water to produce slaked lime--calcium hydroxide--Ca(OH)2--which has different properties. One rainstorm and you don't have quicklime.
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Ah, yes, Jonathan, that is the question: "That is so funny, but what was Jasper up to while Durdles dreamed? He himself goes off to London's opium dens for his hyper-dreams." That's exactly what I was wondering. Why do we not accompany Jasper? We are not meant to know yet; instead we get left with Durdles who dreams that he dropped the key to the crypt. Was Jasper sussing out the possibilities of the crypt? He is entirely too interested in the burial of the dead.
And Pat H points out that quick lime has been introduced. We used to have that at Girl Scout Camp (in Maine). Used it for the outhouses. Every morning someone had the job of sprinkling some of the stuff down--we had a scoop and were warned not to touch it or breathe any in. I wonder if kids today are allowed anywhere near the stuff. Thanks for the information on quick lime, by the way. It is odd that the pile is out in the open. I wonder if Dickens understood that it would have to be in a container.
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" Imagine being dumped in a place like Cloisterham." Jonathan
Good morning - early morning as we're still on London time. Must patiently wait for sleep rhythm to get back to normal. This is a good quiet time to read your posts and catch up with this most interesting and informative discussion. Isn't it funny how we read the same pages and notice different things? I'm looking at some things in a different way after reading your posts.
Jonathan, your comment caught my eye - especially after my time in London at the Dickens' Museum on Doughty St. where he lived in the early years of his marriage with his wife, baby son AND his sistering, Mary Hogarth.
Not to overwhelm with all that I learned in the museum, I'll try to be brief - I said I'd try. ;)
I need to comment here that Dickens loved Cloisterham - which is the actual cathedral town of Rochester. He lived near to Rochester when he was just a child - for several years starting at age five - before his father's downward spiral which landed him in the poor house...and Dickens was sent to the blacking factory. It is said that these were the happiest years of his childhood - he found it serene and peaceful - so much so that his expressed wishes were to be buried in the cathedral burial ground! Imagine that! The same burial ground that he's writing about here in Cloisterham! (You can guess where he is buried, perhaps? Not in Rochester...)
Though the London Museum on Doughty St. is considered THE Dickens' Museum - can you imagine how I felt when I learned that Rochester is only a twenty minute train ride from London? And that Gad's Hill where Dickens was living at his death as he penned his last novel - only five miles from Rochester?
So little time - not enough for another day's excursion, but to think I could have walked on High Street seen the very cathedral, the Nuns' House, the burial yard, the crypt. All there, just as we are reading the description of Cloisterham. Missed opportunity. But I did learn much to share with you at the museum in London.
This is the very house where Dickens lived as a twenty six year old - with wife and 17 year old sister-in-law, Mary. He was quite attached to Mary, scholars still argue today about their relationship. She died in his arms at age 17 - and it is said that he never got over that - his name was on her lips as she died. He wore her ring for the rest of his life. Descriptions of her youth, beauty, innocence and naievte were to appear in many of his novels. I actually stood in the room where she lived - and died.
The reason I visited the museum was because Matthew Pearl acknowledged the people here for contributing to his research his novel, The Last Dickens. I sure hope that you all will find your way into that discussion of his well researched book. I just know you will enjoy it - and will most likely be hungry for more about Drood when we finish the published episodes.
Here's a photo of the four story house, the Dickens' Museum. (I'm sure that awning wasn't there in Dickens' time.) I'll show you more photos of the interior at another time, but don't want to interrupt this discussion with too much...
(http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/oo55/jonkie2/149-1.jpg)
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I share your frustration - it is difficult to stay in the "present" of the story - knowing that something is about to happen to young Edwin Drood - and that we will never know for sure what that will be. (or was!) Do you think Dickens had worked it out in his mind by the time that he died? Perhaps this is the reason he writes in the present tense...to keep our minds off what will happen because he himself doesn't know. ;D
Don't you just love the characters? I love "rosy, cheerful, good natured" Mr. Crisparkle - he is one who seems happy in Cloisterham, isn't he, Jonathan? He lives with his mother - and clearly loves her. I can still see him as "he took the pretty old lady's face between his boxing gloves and kisses it." Though we do hear him say on another occasion that it is not good for man to live alone. We see quite a number of men - and women, young and old, living alone in Cloisterham, don't we? Maybe that's why it seems so gloomy.
Mr. Crisparkle is indeed one of Rosa Bud's "resources" as she now describes Helena. But is she? I know Neville is described as a fierce and wild thing - but he does acknowledge his shortcomings and wishes to tame his anger. Dickens usually pities characters such as Neville's, doesn't he? Those who are trying to improve themselves, pull themselves up from their shortcomings - as he himself did. I don't see Dickens considering him as a murderer.
But I find myself more interested in Helena right now ...is she all that she seems to be? Rosa's new "resource"? Do you trust her? Did you notice that "slumbering gleam of fire in her intense dark eyes," as she listens to Rosa.
Another thing - did you notice that Dickens capitalized "Monster" as Helena tells Rosa that Jack didn't like being charged with being the Monster who had frightened her at the piano. Is Dickens is trying to cast Jasper in this light - as the Monster who is capable of anything. A red herring? Jasper might well be a druggie, who is fixated on his nephew's fiancee - (as Dickens was on his unattainable sister-in-law) but does that mean he's capable of murder?
Of course he's also hanging around with Durdles down in the crypt. What's that about? How is this sudden interest be explained? Did you notice Durdles point out the plot of Jasper's "own brother in law." That got my attention. What would the relation of Jasper's brother-in-law be to Edwin Drood - could it have been Edwin's father? Were they all from Cloisterham?
I hope that some of these myteries get cleared up in the finished episodes, don't you?
Almost caught up to the rest of you - need to read the next chapters about the key, the trip to London, the lime pit. Where does the time go? It's so easy to get caught up in these details!
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WELCOME BACK, JOAN P!! I hope you and Bruce had a wonderful trip, and I see that although your internal clock has not reset itself, you have enough strength to come in with such interesting information about seeing the Dickens' museum and the room where young Mary died. And to think that you could have visited Rochester (Cloisterham) where Dickens had some happy days as a boy! Not to mention walking on the streets. I wonder if the Nuns' House is still there. Certainly the Cathedral is. And the crypt.
In the latter part of his life, Dickens did public readings and met the young actress, Ellen LawlessTernan, in 1857. He fell in love with her, later bought her a house, took trips with her and so forth. She is said to have been a strong and independent woman and from the time he knew her, Dickens' female characters were more fully realized.
As a young man, Dickens idealized women in life and in his books. His sister-in-law, Mary, who was beautiful and innocent and--lucky for Dickens--who died young so that she never lost her youth and beauty, was idealized in a number of his books. She was probably the model for Little Nell (who dies) and for at least part of Little Dorrit.
Another interesting Dickens' sideline. As a young man, he fell in love with Maria Beadnell and courted her for four years. Her parents, however, disapproved, and Maria went on to marry another man. Years later, in 1855, she contacted Dickens and they eventually met. Dickens was much disillusioned that the young and beautiful (and thin) Maria had become a portly matron with a silly laugh. For those of you who saw the recent production of Little Dorrit, she was the model for Flora Finching.
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Good grief, Deems. Do you have h____ week at the Academy every time there is a Monday holiday? What a schedule.
Unfortunately, I have become too bogged down in other stuff and committments to finish Edwin Drood and to be a part of this discussion. However, I have been enjoying the posts and will continue to follow them along. Your comments, including the sidelines about Dickens' life, will be still be helpful for Matthew Pearl's book (which I bought) and plan to discuss.
Welcome back, JoanP.
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Pedln--Good to hear from you. I'm sorry you won't be joining in the discussion, but if you find time to read the next few chapters, please feel free to offer your thoughts. If you've been reading the posts, you have a pretty good idea of what has happened, and the plot is about to take off.
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Hi Pedln...yes do, stick around , follow the posts and you will be ready for Matthew's book in October. Maryal is right - the plot really takes off - now that we have figured out the roles of the major characters. I feel Dickens is at his best with some of the minor characters too. Edwin Drood is sort of sketchy - except for the fact that he is restless - and not even happy with his vocational choice. Poor guy.
Maryal - a bit more on Dickens' young love, Ellen Ternan. She was born in Rochester! In Rochester, aka Cloisterham. How about that!
Dickens was forty-five when he met the actress, Ellen Ternan, and she was eighteen. He became "passionately attached" to her, we're told, though it is unclear whether she felt the same for him. This sounds to me more like his relationship with his young sister-in-law, Mary, doesn't it? Or how about Jasper John's attachment for young Rosa Bud?
At the time of his death, Dickens had separated from his wife, Catherine - and as Maryal said, Ellen was living in a house in near-by Peckham. Dickens remained in his home in Gads' Hill with another of his wife's sister, Georgina, taking over the household management. Some accounts say that Dickens has actually suffered the fatal stroke at Ellen's in Peckham, but was transported back to Gads' Hill where he died. The day he died, Dickens had been writing Drood with this pen, a gift from the actress. I thought you would be interested in the pen, Maryal - can't you just see the words we are reading today being scratched out with this pen - in black ink, never blue!
(http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/oo55/jonkie2/143.jpg)
Off to read this week's chapters...
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ps. Maryal, yes the Nuns' House - called Eastgate in Rochester still stands. It is used for wedding receptions today -
(http://www.infobritain.co.uk/Rochester_Eastgate%20_House.JPG)
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Goodness, JoanP, I'm glad you posted that picture of the Nuns' House. It's much more imposing than I imagined it.
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Thanks very much for sharing your first-hand research and photos, JoanP. They help to flesh out the background of the story.
I too think that it looks like Jasper drugged Neville and Edwin and was baiting Neville by talking about Edwin's accomplishments and opportunities. Then it looks like Jasper later drugged Durdles and took his key. Of course, these might be red herrings but Jasper does seem sinister.
I don't feel antipathy for Edwin. He seems immature but, on the whole, good-hearted to me. He does say awful things to Neville but may have been goaded by Jasper and may also feel badly that he doesn't seem to love Rosa as much as Neville appears to.
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I love the photo of Nuns' House, Joan P. Thank you. I had imagined it in gray stone (because it's in a Cathedral town and because of Durdles who is always stone dusty I guess). But Red, how interesting. And it's also interesting to me that it is now used for wedding receptions. Do you suppose the ghosts of all the young women from Edwin Drood attend the wedding receptions?
And I do love seeing the pen. Can't imagine writing with it, but I love seeing it.
And yes, Ellen (called Nell) Landless Ternan was from Rochester. How Dickens must have been thinking of her when he used her home town and his as well as her middle name in the story. Dickens left her 1000 pounds in his will, enough to assure that she would never have to work again. She married and had children after his death, having subtracted some 15 years from her age. You could get away with things like that before the internet.
There's also Jasper's smoldering passion for Rosa--I wonder how much of Dickens' own passion we see reflected there.
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Deems, two points from your last post are important for our story. Dickens left Ellen Ternan 1000 pounds in his will, enough to assure that she would never have to work again. Rosa, on coming of age, will be "in possession of a lump sum of money, rather exceeding Seventeen Hundred Pounds." So she is well-off enough not to have to worry about money, and also to be an object of prey for someone like Jasper, who is dissatisfied with his lot.
Landless was Ellen Ternan's middle name. Names are important to Dickens, and I had assumed that Landless referred to Neville and Helena's uncertain position in life. But I find it hard to believe that Dickens would name a bad character after someone he loved, so maybe that is a clue about whether Neville and Helena are "good guys" or "bad guys".
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Jonathan, that is a great line that you quoted about Dardles semi-conscious dream. I, too, thought it was very funny. 'It is not much of a dream, considering the vast extent of the domains of dreamland, and their wonderful productions.'
Good points, Pat, to follow up Deems information about the use of the Landless name. Also, the potential for Rosa's inheritence to be at least part of a motive for seeking her hand.
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Interesting, Pat H, that Dickens most likely wouldn't use a name of the woman he loved for characters who would end up being villains. Also notice that her first name, Helena, is very like "Ellen."
Jonathan, I too, chuckled at Dickens' remarks about dreams. There a wonderful painting of him leaning back in an armchair, apparently dozing (I think) while above his head in a semicircle are many of his characters, dancing and cavorting around.
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Interesting observation about the Landless name, PatH... Actually, I think that Ellen's middle name was "Lawless" - sounds like something Dickens made up, as they were living outside the law, doesn't it? Do you suppose that Dickens just liked the name because it indicated that Helena and Neville were "landless"? But the names Helena and Ellen are much the same, aren't they?
The painting you are talking about hangs in the Dickens' museum, Maryal. 'Dickens' Dream' by Robert William Buss - Buss was the illustrator of Dickens' first big success, Pickwick Papers.
I took this photo of it - it isn't all that clear, there seems to be a reflection from the flash on the glass - but I think you can make out the characters most colorful, most clearly defined - those near Dickens' head - are all from the engravings in Drood! Buss did the painting in 1870 AFTER Dickens' death - but Buss himself didn't live to complete his painting. Maybe all of the characters would have been as vivid as those from Drood had he finished it.
(http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/oo55/jonkie2/146.jpg)
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What an interesting painting, Joan. I'm very glad you took these photos. What a coincidence that the artist didn't live to complete this painting that has figures from the unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood!
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Before we leave Week 2, I want to follow up on PatH's response to Question 14: examples of foreshadowing in "A Night with Durdles."
Pat, you mentioned the lime pit. From reading mystery books and/or watching scary movies, I, too, thought at once that the lime pit will come up again.
Even before Jasper meets Durdles that night, Dickens says that Jasper puts on his hat and "goes softly out. Why does he move so softly tonight? No outward reason is apparent for it. Can there be any sympathetic reason crouching darkly within him." Oh yes, I do think there is some dark motive in Jasper!
After they pass the lime pit, they see Mr. Crisparkle and Neville but Jasper "with a strange and sudden smile upon his face" stops Durdles so they won't be seen by the two. Then "Jasper folds his arms upon the top of the wall and, with his chin resting on them, watches Neville, as though his eye were at the trigger of a loaded rifle, and he had covered him, and were going to fire. A sense of destructive power is so expressed on his face, that even Durdles pauses in his munching and looks at him....." Then they hear just a few words of conversation between Crisparkle and Neville, including Crisparkle reminding Neville that he told Jasper that Neville would apologize to Drood. After they leave, Jasper "bursts into a fit of laughter." although Durdles sees nothing funny. It doesn't seem to me that these behaviors could have some innocent explanation.
There is one exchange that puzzles me. Shortly after they begin walking around the crypts, Durdles says says that "this time last year" he heard "the ghost of one terrific shriek, which shriek was followed by the ghost of the howl of a dog; a long dismal woeful howl, such as a dog gives when a person's dead. That was my last Christmas Eve." Jasper gets very upset about this. "'I thought you were another kind of man,' says Jasper, scornfully." I am not sure what this is about. Does anyone else have any ideas?
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Marcie: "There is one exchange that puzzles me. Shortly after they begin walking around the crypts, Durdles says says that "this time last year" he heard "the ghost of one terrific shriek, which shriek was followed by the ghost of the howl of a dog; a long dismal woeful howl, such as a dog gives when a person's dead. That was my last Christmas Eve." Jasper gets very upset about this. "'I thought you were another kind of man,' says Jasper, scornfully." I am not sure what this is about. Does anyone else have any ideas?"
I'll take a stab at it. Durdles' dream is another bit of foreshadowing. He has never seen a ghost, but he had one experience, the previous Christmas, where he heard shrieks and howls. Jasper's response indicates that he didn't think that Durdles was the superstitious sort but a more down-to-earth man. Since Edwin is due home for Christmas, perhaps something will happen this Christmas Eve.
But we need to read this week's chapters to find out.
Joan P--Yes! That's the painting exactly, and I'm glad you saw it. I notice that the characters from his older works are done in a lighter tone while those from Drood are darker, indicating that it was the most recent work. I saw that painting years ago in England and have always remembered it. Thank you.
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Deems, I agree about Durdles' dream. It's prophetic, occurring on Christmas Eve, exactly a year before the dinner with Neville, Jasper, and Drood. There are some other bits of foreshadowing, too. When Jasper arrives at Durdles' house, there are two journeymen's saws sticking up, and Dickens imagines them cutting out the next two gravestones: "Curious to make a guess at the two--or say one of the two!" After Durdles and Jasper overhear Neville assuring Mr. Crisparkle of his good behavior at the dinner, Jasper bursts into a prolonged fit of laughter. This installment ended with the end of this chapter, so Dickens' readers had plenty of time to wonder about all this.
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Thanks for the further foreshadowing, Pat H, as well as for pointing out that the installment ended with this chapter and that the readers had a good deal of time to worry about what all these signs might mean. Dickens may have begun the novel with a difficult chapter, one that might turn readers off, but he sees always careful to end an installment in such a way that the reader wants to know more.
And Joan P, I've been, I think, calling the mistress, Ellen Landless Ternan, but you are correct--she was Ellen Lawless Ternan. I transposed the W and the DL. I'm glad to have this error corrected. Dickens changes both names, just a little--Ellen > Helena and Lawless > Landless, and yes, I like the suggestion that they are not in possession of any land as well as the fact that having lived in Ceylon, they are also "landless" in the sense of not growing up in England, their homeland.
Please take note of our new illustration by Samuel Luke Fildes, Dickens' last illustrator, a young man with whom he worked closely (no wonder the illustrations are so accurate). It's entitled "Mr. Grewgious has his suspicions" and goes with the end of Chapter 15, "Impeached." The body--or as I like to think of it the pile of clothes on the floor--is John Jasper who has collapsed. I also like the rendering of Grewgious to whom I have taken a special liking. He does look rather "angular" in the illustration.
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Before moving on, I just want to recognize another sweet guy - Mr. Grewgious. I share your feelings for this man, Maryal. Have you counted the times that he states he is an "Angular man?" It took a while to understand that he is trying to convince us, (or himself), that he is a hard, unemotional man - who has had no "soft experiences."
Was it Rosa's mother that he loved? I don't believe for a minute that he is an unfeeling man of cold, sharp edges, do you? As he describes to Edwin what he thinks it means to be in love, he makes Edwin conscious of the fact that he himself doesn't fit that description. Edwin feebly offers - "a lover may not share all that he feels." That can be taken two ways, can't it? How did you understand what he said?
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I'm almost with you - just finished Chapter XII, Jasper spending the night with Durdles. I'll go look at the illustration now...
Can anyone explain to me what the two are doing in the crypt at night? I understand that Jasper is up to no good. I thought I understood that Durdles liked to hang out there in the dark by himself - and drink. But what is he really doing - disinterring whole families of decomposing corpses?
Why? Is this a real job that he has, working for the Cathedral?
I'm another who does not understand what happened with the key during Durdles' dream. I thought at first that Jasper wanted to steal it as Durdles slept. But by the end of the dream it was back in his possession. Then I thought that Jasper had substituted the key with another, but Durdles had no problem unlocking the crypt when they went out. Durdles was sleeping for quite a while. Did Jasper have time to fashion another as he slept? Do you think we'll ever know what Dickens was planning with this incident? Can we assume that Jasper now has a key to the crypt?
Did you read the footnote about the lime pit - pretty funny. It says that the belief that quick line promotes rapid decomposition of corpses was erroneous. In fact it acts as a preservative. But this is fiction and since Dickens shares the common misapprehension of lime's corrosive ability, we'll have to accept this bit of information as part of Jasper's evil scheming.
Marcie, from the way that Jasper looks at him with that destructive expression on his , does it seem to you that Jasper hates Neville as much as he hates Edwin? Are we to fear that he plans to do away with both of them? Maybe Jasper bursts into the fit of laughter as he realizes he can stage Edwin's death to make it appear that Neville did it - and that will be the end of both of his rivals.
Maryal, I picked up on the reference to the two gravestones as well. I think Jasper is planning two deaths.
All the talk of blood, death, ghosts, shrieks and howls mesh with the references to MacBeth which seem to be coming more frequently now. Jasper seems to be exhibiting absolutely no qualms of conscious as he contemplates death - (is he contemplating death, or is Dickens making it seem so?) He doesn't foresee any ghosts keeping him awake at night - or blood on his little white hands that will never come clean. He doesn''t believe in ghosts. Doesn't anticipate sleepless nights. Maybe that's why he gets upset at Durdles who says he doesn't believe in ghosts either, but is really shattered at the shrieks and howls.
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Joan P: "I'm another who does not understand what happened with the key during Durdles' dream. I thought at first that Jasper wanted to steal it as Durdles slept. But by the end of the dream it was back in his possession. Then I thought that Jasper had substituted the key with another, but Durdles had no problem unlocking the crypt when they went out. Durdles was sleeping for quite a while. Did Jasper have time to fashion another as he slept? Do you think we'll ever know what Dickens was planning with this incident? Can we assume that Jasper now has a key to the crypt?"
We're never going to find out since the novel was only half written, but I have a theory about the key. Durdles has no idea how long he has been asleep--it seems like a short nap--and I don't think we know exactly when they set off on the expedition (someone check that, maybe we do), but when he wakes he is amazed that it is 2:00 AM. If we assume that he's been asleep more than an hour, Jasper has plenty of time to take the key to the crypt, make a wax mold of it (the key to be made later) and return the key to Durdles.
Heaven only knows what else Jasper is doing while Durdles is passed out. I suspect--again--that the bottle has been doctored with a little opium since that seems to be Jasper's drug of choice. Maybe Jasper has gone to the crypt looking (by tapping with the hammer as Durdles taught him) for a space that seems to be empty, or one that has a corpse in it that has moldered away?
Maybe the whole key in wax impression isn't necessary after all since it would not be difficult to get the key away from Durdles again when it is needed (when body is to be buried).
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What a curious scene in the illustration at the top of the page, with Jasper on the floor, after hearing that Rosa and Ned have split up. This seems like unlikely behavior on the part of a diabolical man with evil schemes running through his head. Going to pieces like that. Of course Jasper has always gone out of his way, or exaggerated his concerns about his nephew's welfare. I see some unusual psychology here that would puzzle a Freud or a Dostoyevsky. A criminal mind with sexual hang-ups?
I find the 'large black scarf of strong close-woven silk, slung loosely round his (Jasper's) neck' a most ominous foreshadowing, to add to those already mentioned. It comes up in Chap 14. On the following page we hear about the 'knitted and stern' face as Jasper 'pulls off that great black scarf and hangs it in a loop upon his arm' before entering his digs to meet with Neville and Ned. Strang man.
Of course there was also the knife in the opening chapter that Jasper made a note of.
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We may never find out all that's happening in that scene, but it's wonderful theater: the spooky Cathedral, the crypt, dark, with its lanes of moonlight, starting up steps to the tower in total darkness (something I sure wouldn't care to try), looking down at the nave and straight out at the angels' heads on the corbelled roof, up and up to the top where the town is laid out in the moonlight.
There's comic relief, too. "As aeronauts lighten the load they carry, when they wish to rise, similarly Durdles has lightened the wicker bottle in coming up." By now he's pretty incapable. Then: "And as aeronauts make themselves heavier when they wish to descend, similarly Durdles charges himself with more liquid from the wicker bottle that he may come down the better."
Then asleep in the crypt, and the surreal touch of the lanes of light shifting.
I couldn't spot a reference to just when they started the expedition, but since there were still people about, I'm guessing that Durdles was asleep several hours.
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Jonathan, you were posting while I was writing about chapter 12.
I can think of a very good explanation for Jasper fainting like that. If he has indeed done away with Drood, his motive has to be so he can marry Rosa. He wants her fortune, and he wants to dominate her personally (I don't call it love, because it doesn't look like it to me, but he wants to possess her). If the engagement has been broken, Jasper could just court Rosa, without resorting to crime.
The scarf puzzled me.
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Reading the book this way, one section at a time, using self-control not to read ahead, makes me appreciate what it was like for Dickens fans to read it in installments. As you point out, Deems, he's careful to have a cliffhanger each time. Chapter 4 isn't much of one, we've introduced Mr. Sapsea and Durdles, but chapter 8 is "Daggers Drawn", ending with Drood insulting Neville unforgivably, violence barely averted. Chapter 12 is the night with Durdles, the spooky scene in the Cathedral. In deference to those who haven't read up to schedule, I'll only say that in chapter 16 there is an increase in dramatic tension.
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I am continuing to read our book. Up to chapter 12, at this point. I find the language that Dickens uses is a bit too flower-y for me. Once I finish the book, I plan to reread it. There are so many characters, that I am almost totally confused about who is who. From now on I plan to make a list of the characters in any book I read.
In reading the posts I find quite a bit of clarification. Which I appreciate. At this point I do not like Neville. But, I do feel sad that he has had such a difficult life. I was amused by how many times Rosa's guardian called himself, awkward. It also intrests me at how often Dickens refers to Rosa as "little".
This Wednesday, the International History Channel is playing a bio of Charles Dickens. In my area is is showing at 5:00 a.m. I plan to record it.
Sheila
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Sounds like a good idea - keeping a list, Sheila. Right now, if you are up to Chapter 12, I think you're golden. Congratulations! Things will pick up now! By the way, where do you live. I'd like to tune in to the International History channel myself.
I'm thinking too of Dickens' followers, and there were many, waiting for the next installment, having been left cliffhanging in the preceding issue. Really, they were much better off than we are, don't you think? They could sit back, confident in Dickens' storytelling, knowing they were in good hands as he tossed out little tidbits, and then circled around to toss out more of an explanation in the next edition. They had no clue how Dickens would end his story - but they knew they were in for a treat before it was all over.
I have to admit - knowledge of the fact that we will never know what he intended - is driving me crazy! I'm trying, I really am, to stay in the present installment...just as the 19th century audience did. But just as I sit back and get comfy with Dickens' writing, I remember what is coming - or not coming...
Pat, the black silk scarf - Dickens makes sure to note that it is one that he never wore before. Are we to consider that Edwin has been strangled? I really don't believe that Dickens would do that - but he seems to be suggesting it, doesn't he? Poor Neville! He doesn't have a chance, even though there is no evidence...except that he has an un-English complexion. The mayor, Sapsea is ready to lock him up for that alone!
In the same chapter, Dickens is building a case to use against Uncle Jasper - such as the old opium smoking hag who speaks of the name "Ned" - a name that only Jasper calls his nephew. Do you think she'll be a witness - if there has been a crime, if there is a body, if there is a trial? Edwin's watch is significant too, isn't it? Can't you see Dickens working out all these details? It must have been difficult writing like this. If the novel had been written first, and then divided into published installments, we wouldn't in this situation. I keep hoping that an outline or something will turn up in someone's papers...but 140 years have gone by - and nothing has turned up.
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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Sheila, thanks for the news about the Dickens biography on the History Channel. I'll check to see if it's available in my area. I found some video clips about Dickens' life at http://www.biography.com/articles/Charles-John-Huffam-Dickens-9274087
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I found that I do get the History Channel International and that Charles Dickens: A Tale of Ambition and Genius will be broadcast for an hour in the morning on Wednesday and repeated in the afternoon.
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I have to admit, I couldn't put the book down, and have finished it. So I have to be careful what I say. It is clear in the section were reading, that Dickens is setting us up to believe that Jasper killed Edwin, and set Neville up to be blamed for it. If this was a modern mystery story, mystery readers like me would be sure that that WASN'T the case: that it would turn out that either Edwin wasn't dead or Jasper didn't kill him. There would be a surprise twist at the end where the real situation was revealed.
But we don't know what kind of a mystery writer Dickens was (did he write any others?). In my historical ignorance, I don't even know if he had any models of mysteries to follow. Had "The Moonstone" been written yet? It is full of false suspicions and has a surprising "whodunnit". Dickens has planted so many clues leading to Jasper as a murderer, it's hard to believe they are all "red herrings" (the term in mysteries for clues that lead one in the wrong direction).
I can't wait to see what Matthew Pearl makes of it. A different solution would have to explain a lot away at this point.
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Hi there, JoanK. You've hit on some points that I'd been thinking about too. As I understand it, this was Dickens' first mystery. He made a point to tell everyone that this would be different from anything he'd ever written. Yes, Wilkie Collins had written Moonstone, 1868 - but this was only two years before Dickens wrote Drood. He and Dickens were very close right up to the time of Dickens' death. Willie Collins' younger brother was married to Dickens' youngest daughter. (Don't you think he might have confided his plans for the book in his writer friend?)
I agree with you, I find it difficult to believe that Jasper had killed his nephew. Is that the story? What would be left to tell in the second half of the book?
Another thing...Dickens made a point of referring to the title as The MYSTERY of Edwin Drood...not the MURDER of Edwin Drood. Perhaps he intended to leave it a mystery right to the end...wouldn't that be something? ;)
In Chapter 15 and 16, first we see Jasper collapse on the floor - and then come up with the story that his nephew has probably just left town when the engagement was called off. Do you understand why this change? I'm afraid I don't understand the title "Impeached" on Chapter 15. Impeach - to discredit?
I can see Jasper collapsing if he really has murdered his nephew to keep the engagement from happening - but do we believe that he murdered Edwin? If not, why was he overcome to the point of collapse?
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Hi JoanP,
How was your trip?? I have been down with the strangest stomach flu that I have ever had. It took a long time to finally let me eat today and I have had it since Friday night. Oh well, it wasn't H1N1 and that's a plus.
Somewhere in my book, I read that Dickens and Collins had a friendly contest going about Dicken's first mystery. Collins' book was such a good read and I think that my daughter and I have read it twice which I just hardly ever do. Seems like I read that Dickens thought he could at least write a mystery as well as Collins. We shall see, won't we???? or maybe not!
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There seem to be (at least) two schools of thought on the type of mystery that Dickens was writing: a "whodonit" or a "psychological thriller" type of book, where you know (or think you know) who the bad guy is and you learn more about his state of mind.
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If the author intended to confuse us by always blaming Jasper for the death of or disappearence of his nephew or at least, hinting at it, he has succeded far too easily, IMO! Although we have no ending here, I feel that we will be surprised as the story unfolds.
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Annie, is there a test that indicates that you have/have not had swine flu? My son was down for five days - fever of 104. Finally his wife persuaded him to see a doctor - who told him he didn't have swine flu. All the symptoms sounded as if he had...and he said, as you did, that he had never had such a case of flu as this one.
There seem to be (at least) two schools of thought on the type of mystery that Dickens was writing: a "whodonit" or a "psychological thriller" type of book, where you know (or think you know) who the bad guy is and you learn more about his state of mind.
Marcie, I think we are looking at the psychological thriller, don't you? So, is Dickens trying to show Jasper is the "bad guy"? I don't think we are allowed into Jasper's state of mind, but rather his actions - and from everything he does, he certainly appears guilty.
Poor Neville - the same can be said for him. Everyone believes he's guilty - except dear Mr. Crisparkle.
Even the Dean counsels him against providing sanctuary. I loved his comment - "We clergy keep our hearts warm and our heads cool." And then he adds, "We clergy need do nothing emphatically." To me he is saying...Mr. Crisparkle should do nothing one way or another concerning his belief that Neville is innocent. Is this Dickens commenting on his own attitudes regarding the clergy?
I may have missed it - but has Mr. Grewgious told anyone about the ring? We have two strong reasons to believe that Edwin would have waited for Mr.G's arrival in Cloisterham - 1. He promised PRosa he would and 2. he intends to return the ring. Did Mr. G. think about this? Did he tell anyone about it? (I've only read Chatper 16, Devoted.
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I just read Matthew Pearl's post in The Last Dickens (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?board=71.0).
His own edition of Mystery of Edwin Drood has just been released in the US - Gum , since you already have this copy, will you please go into the discussion and comment on your edition? He's saying something about footnotes - or endnotes, which you might not have.
We're nearing the October 1 start date - if any of you are planning on joining in that discussion, will you do me a favor and post something in there - anything, just so we can get the conversation going? Thanks! You can find the discussion here - The Last Dickens (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?board=71.0)
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JoanP,
Yes there is a way to know but I don't know what it is. Man, you would think that a fever would count, wouldn't you??
I did not have that kind of cold or flu that your son had. Mine was the complete upset of my stomach and intestines which lasted for three days and then I still couldn't get past the weakness for another 2 days.
According to my daughter, they have already lost one Cornell student in Ithaca, NY and she is really worried since she works in the office at Telluride House where all the nerd(read- brilliant) students live. I asked her if they were wearing face masks yet and she said no. Since she is an asthmatic, she lives in fear of all flu seasons and will be using her meds faithfully. Plus acupuncture, herbs and flu shots.
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How can you have a whodunnit, without something having been done.? Perhaps it's meant as a story of madness. I liked Pat's explanation of Jasper's sudden, total collapse on hearing about Rosa and Edwin's agreement to go their separate ways. Perhaps murder had been committed at that point, leaving the murderer dazed. Like Macbeth, or Lady Macbeth. With the many references to Shakespeare's play the reader is set up to make many associations.
Why did Dickens attempt something new in DROOD? Or was it just his swan song. He was sick and tired at this stage of his life, did in fact have that wonderful pen fall out of his hands before finishing his tale. When he chose Cloisterham (Rochester) it must have been with a feeling of going home. Lots of clues that he was sentimental about his birthplace. We've come full circle. Wasn't PICKWICK PAPERS one of his earliest works? The first journey the Pickwickians take is to Rochester.
Pat, thanks for doing the cathedral tower climb with Durdles. Wasn't that a shivery thing with the 'startled jackdaw' and and 'frightened rook' sending up a cloud of dust and straws' in the confining passageway. But then the glorious view from the top:
'...they look down on Cloisterham, fair to see in the moonlight...its river winding down from the mist on the horizon, as though that were its source, and already heaving with a restless knowledge of its approach towards the sea.'
Magical. What would, or could, the famous Turner, or the Hudson River School of Art have done with that! I'm sorry that the scene switches to London in the later chapters.
He left his tale unfinished, but Dickens was contemplating the end from the very beginning. At least that's what I make of his thoughts, early in Chapter 6, when he muses on the 'that blessed air of tranquility which pervaded Minor Canon Corner, and that serenely romantic state of mind - productive for the most part of pity and forebearance - which is engendered by a sorrowful story that is all told, or a pathetic play that is played out.'
So there's a challenge for anyone wanting to finish the story begun by Dickens. My copy of DROOD comes with a 120-page cotinuation and completion of the mystery. I haven't read it, except for this line near the end. It shouldn't be a spoiler, just a teaser:
'Durdles, in a celebratory mood, has thrice seen the ghost of the Choir Master, dancing a jig under the Cathedral porch.'
I'm not sure Dickens would have liked that.
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Though they were collaborators on many publications, my understanding is that Dickens and Wilkie Collins were sort of rivals/competitive in the writing that each did by himself. Collins and Dickens had some kind of falling out in their relationship during the last few years before Dickens died.
Collins' Moonstone increased the circulation of "All the Year Round," the magazine owned and edited by Dickens, more than any novel either of them had written up to that point. I think that Dickens wanted to try his hand at some type of mystery. I do think it was to be more of a psychological study than a detective mystery.... with some kind of major surprise at the end. After we finish the last chapters he wrote, let's try to imagine what Dickens surprise was going to be. Jonathan, I agree with you. Dickens must hint at his ending in the chapters we're reading, even though there was to be a surprise.
JoanP, I found a July article in the Washington Times in which the writer alludes to the many novels written about Dickens in 2009. He doesn't seem to have an answer about why so many at this time but it is an interesting article: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/26/books-imitating-inimitable/
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I think "The Moonstone" will be useful to us when we start trying to guess the ending. Dickens might very well have been trying to imitate, or outshine, Collins. There's something else, too. We tend to forget how new the detective story was then. "The Moonstone" was groundbreaking, perhaps the first full-length detective story. It can serve as a reminder of the assumptions and conventions of the time, simpler than now.
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PATH: you anticipated what I was going to say (must be that magical twin thing working ;)). "The Moonstone" is considered the first full length mystery story (at least in English) -- Who knows if he was familiar with Poe's short stories. He didn't have a lot of patterns to work from. Whatever he planned may not fit into the catagories we've come to know.
For example, it's an unwritten rule in today's mysteries that someone gets murdered, even if it's not the person you think it is. We don't know for sure yet that Drood was murdered -- I was automatically thinking if he wasn't, then who WILL get mudered. But of course, it could be no one.
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One thing intrigued me. In the scene between Edwin and Rosa, Edwin several times is on the verge of telling Rosa about the ring, and decides not to. Dickens then says (I don't have the book here) something like this decision starts one of those chains that determine future events.
We'll never know, but since, I've been trying to think of scenerios that would fit this statement. It isn't easy.
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What wonderful comments greet me as I stagger to the computer--no, not taking opium in any form. I seem to be sick with something or other. Slept forever this morning (no classes today) and have a fever--not high, but it's there. And a strange head.
Reading that both Annie and Joan P's son have recently recovered from something certainly gives me pause. I'm hoping that I'm just worn out and with all the sleeping and taking it easy, not to mention Cold-eeze which I've been sucking, all will be well.
I'm especially interested in all the comments on just what kind of a mystery do we have here. Several of you have noted how very new that mystery story was what with The Moonstone only being a few years old. And Joan K even reminds us of Edgar Allen Poe and his short stories with Auguste Dupuin. I think those stories were the actually beginnings of the mystery, but don't quote me. I still remember one of the Wishbone stories being one of Poe's--I think it was "The Purloined Letter."
Anyhoo, Marcie wrote "There seem to be (at least) two schools of thought on the type of mystery that Dickens was writing: a "whodonit" or a "psychological thriller" type of book, where you know (or think you know) who the bad guy is and you learn more about his state of mind." I agree with both Joan P and Marcie that in all probability what we have going on here is a psychological study, more like Jonathan Kellerman --minus the psychiatrist (who in Dickens' time would have been called an alienist)--than Elizabeth George.
Apparently Dickens meant to do something entirely new here, with the second half involving some sort of roundabout confession from Jasper with Jasper in prison. Remember the "diary" that Jasper has been keeping that he tells Crisparkle is as much a diary of Ned's life as his own? Perhaps more of that diary would be revealed in the second half.
There is so much we do not know about Jasper that it would be most interesting to find out. People have already mentioned his unhappiness in Cloisterham and his desire for Rosa--I'm not sure it's even her money. We know about his use of opium and the after-effects of that addiction. We know virtually nothing, however, about why he is in Cloisterham, what his younger life was like, why he has not married, what pains, other than the ones he mentions to Ned he has experienced. In other words, just what made Jasper into the man that he apparently is. So much I would like to know.
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A nitpick -- nitpicking is my middle name. But since I'm in the mystery corner, and we throw these terms around all the time, I want to get them straight. A "psychological" is not necessarily a mystery in which we know who did it from the beginning, just one where we get deeply into the psychology of the characters, the detective, and the killer (even if just at the end, when we find out he is the killer). Elizabeth George's books are considered "psychologicals". I haven't read Jonathan kellerman, so can't comment on him.
We aren't really inside Jasper's mind, at least not yet. We only guess what he is thinking from hints and brief sentances.
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This is taking on a mysterious shape. I felt that a continuation or sequel to DROOD would be a Cloisterham Revistited thing, but now it seems that it might be a MOONSTONE revisited treat. Dickens has brouht in the moon on numerous occasions. And now that stone-encrusted ring is becoming all-important.. The last we hear of it, it's in Edwin's possession, and on his person. Edwin's watch and pin were removed from his person and disposed of in the weir, a murderer knowing that quicklime would not reduce them to nothingness like it would a body. So, find the ring, and we find what's left of Edwin. Not very pretty, but incriminating. Durdles probably does the finding. Now who would know that Edwin never wore jewelry other than watch and pin? Only Jasper. And here he was, plotting the perfect crime.
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JONATHAN: how clever of you. Of course the ring would stay, and Jasper wouldn't know it was there. And I missed the parallels to "The Moonstone" where a jewel plays a prominant part in the plot. This is Dickens' "moonstone".
I'll bet there are a lot more parallels. It's been too long since I read M for me to pick them up.
Boy, Dickens really repays this careful study. I wish I could read more of him with you guys.
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Deems, I hope you feel better soon and that you don't have the flu.
I agree that reading The Moonstone would help us see the type of plot, evil deeds, etc, that fit into the era when Willkie Collins and Dickens were writing. I would think that Dickens wouldn't want to be seen as copying Collins and wouldn't, therefore, include a lot of the same details. But maybe that's not so.
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I watched the biography of Dickens on the History International Channel and found it interesting. One of the main things I took from it was the impact some terrible experiences in early childhood made on the rest of his life. His father was terrible in managing money. When his father went to debtor's prison with the rest of the family when Charles was 12, Charles was not permitted to go with them since he was of working age and he had to work in a shoe dye factory for a year or so to earn money. When the family finances improved (an inheritance?) and his father and family were released, Charles was deeply wounded by his mother's insistence that he continue to work at the factory. His father, however, rescued him from that fate, and between 1824 and 1827 Dickens was a day pupil at a school in London. At 15, he became an office boy at an attorney's, while he studied shorthand at night. He later became a reporter due to his fluency with shorthand.
His year at the factory haunted him all of his life but he kept it a secret from almost everyone. He was determined to do well financially and achieve the dreams that he and his father had shared when he was young. It's thought that his hardship at a young age was later a source both of creative energy and of the preoccupation with the themes of alienation and betrayal that many people point to in his work.
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Marcie, I agree that Dickens would avoid details that would seem to be copying "Moonstone" directly. What he wouldn't be able to avoid would be the underlying assumptions of the time.
By the way, laudanum (opium) plays an important part in "Moonstone" too, though in a completely different way.
The Moonstone itself is a large yellow diamond, stolen (by a relative of the heroine) from the eye of an Indian idol at the siege of Seringapatam. The plot isn't about a murder, but about the theft of the diamond from the heroine. Always hovering in the background are the three religious Indians waiting their chance to recover the gem and return it to the goddess.
Quite a different setup from Drood.
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Joan K--I had no idea that a "psychological" was a term for a particular kind of mystery or that Elizabeth George wrote them. I guess the term would apply to P.D James as well? I guess I need another term. Dickens, it seems, was very interested in what motivated Jasper (I am assuming that he did it and that Ned is dead) and in how he would be caught and what he would do if caught.
Jonathan--Ah, Durdles probably does the finding--cool. I'll bet he was designed to do it. Perhaps while in the act of finding a space for another body's final resting place? And the ring has to be important since it has not been found.
Still not myself, but no worse. Which is good.
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A nitpick -- nitpicking is my middle name.
Gee, I thought nitpicking was my middle name. Do you think we have something in common?
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There's so much detail here that I'm having trouble moving on, even though I've read up to date. I Will move on, maybe coming back later to the corbels in the cathedral, but I have to mention the rooks. They enter in chapter 2, and make many appearances later. You see them a lot in English books, adding atmosphere. Essentially, they're a kind of crow, but they seem to have different behavior patterns. This Wikipedia article starts with a picture of the bird, and if you scroll down a little you see a painting of rooks in a tree with a church in the background. The size is about the same as an American crow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(bird) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(bird))
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Deems, for goodness sake take care of yourself. Don't forget that if it is swine flu, you will have lingering respiratory symptoms.
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Maryal, I've been reading that area colleges have been struck with the swine flu earlier than was expected. Do you hear of cases at the Naval Academy? It's good that you are feeling better. They say if you think you've got it - stay home! Did you get that memo?
I had been trying to think of possible confidants of Dickens, hoping for a clue regarding the direction he was taking for his final novel, his first "mystery." It makes sense to me that Dickens would write a "psychological" - and yet we are looking at the actions of the characters to determine their inner state of mind. Is this how "psychologicals" are written?
Since he worked so closely with Wilkie Collins, I thought he might provide some clues regarding Dickens' intent. Was so disappointed to hear from Marcie that the two friends had fallen out at the end - I just had to learn more.
"Consequently, after initial enthusiasm, Dickens was less sure of The Moonstone, even though its serial publication pumped up the circulation of All the Year Round more than any novel so far, including his own A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861). However, Dickens's exasperation with both the best-seller and its author may stem from his growing dissatisfaction with his sickly and neurotic son-in-law, Charles Collins. Dickens confided in the actor Charles Fechter that, looking at his son-in-law across the dining table at Gad's Hill, Dickens thought to himself at this time, "Astonishing you should be here today, but tomorrow you will be in your chamber never to come out again." However, Dickens admired Wilkie's subsequent work, including the play that Wilkie wrote based on one of Fechter's ideas, Black and White (1869).
In the late 1860s, Collins began to decline in health, and his growing opium addiction and his peculiar relationships with Caroline Graves and Martha Rudd led to his estrangement from Dickens, who knew all the details of Wilkie's private life, just as he knew all about Dickens's extra- marital affair with the young actress Ellen Ternan. Not surprisingly, in print as in life secrets and double identities held a fascination for both novelists. Wilkie Collins and his mentor remained estranged in the last years of Dickens's life. After Dickens's death in 1870, Collins remained a prolific writer, despite continued ill health." http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/collins/dickens1.html
Is there any interest in reading/discussing Collins' Moonstone at a later date? I remember a very good discussion in his "Woman in White" several years ago.
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"There is so much we do not know about Jasper that it would be most interesting to find out. People have already mentioned his unhappiness in Cloisterham ... We know virtually nothing, however, about why he is in Cloisterham, what his younger life was like, why he has not married, what pains, other than the ones he mentions to Ned he has experienced. In other words, just what made Jasper into the man that he apparently is. So much I would like to know." Maryal
You just reminded me about a remark Durdles made to Jasper during their walk through the Cloisterham churchyard - Durdles points out the plot of Jasper's "own brother-in- law." I would imagine if Jasper's brother-in-law is buried here in Cloisterham's churchyard, more of the family lives in this town too - or did at one time. A brother in law indicates that Jasper has a brother - or a sister living in Cloisterham at one time or another. I keep puzzling over the possible relationships between Jasper's brother-in-law - and Edwin Drood. The brother-in-law would be too young to have died a natural death, don't you think? Had Dickens' finished this novel, I'm sure we would have learned more about Jasper's family connections in Cloisterham.
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Are you detecting a change in mood with the introduction of Tartar and Datchery into the story? A shift for the better. Datchery seems to have an agenda, a reason to come to this town looking for an architecturally interesting place to live...something old, something out of the way - "inconvenient" and "venerable - like right next to Jasper's place. He settles for the rooms where he can sit and watch all the comings and goings in the town. You know what he seems like to me? A detective. A private investigator. And he's so disarming, that no one suspects he is investigating. Like Miss Marple. He's even got Sapsea providing him with all the information he needs. I don't know why, but I think things are looking up for Neville.
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Ah yes, Joan P, Tartar (the sailor turned gardener) and Datchery--our two new characters. I like your guess that Datchery might be a detective (he reminds me of Columbo who always had just one more question. Loved that guy.) It seems odd that anyone would just turn up in Cloisterham and ask all these questions. Who could have sent him? Is he really some other character we have already met--in disguise? I'm certain he would have played a role in the second part of the novel. Otherwise, why introduce him so late in the book?
Tartar, on the the other hand, is an available bachelor--aha. A potential husband for Rosa? For Helena? Rosa certainly has a time in his ship-like apartment, trying to keep herself aware of which magical world she is inhabiting, the ship, or the "garden" with her friend, Helena. Dickens does a wonderful job of describing her turning back and forth from one to the other. Ooops, I don't think we've gotten to Tartar yet. Sorry, don't have the book with me at work.
Later.
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No, you didn't jump ahead, Maryal...we've met Tartar, a big guy, "eight and twenty" - as nimble as a gymnast. He's the one with the roof garden outside Neville's window. A new friend for Neville. Haven't seen him with Rosa yet though.
Now you've given me something to think about - Datchery - Is he really some other character we have already met--in disguise?
The long white flowing hair is mentioned several times. It could be a wig, but the fact that he likes to shake his head like a dog drying himself off - wouldn't that be difficult to do with a wig. I DO remember reading that he had long white hair though - AND black black eyebrows. Is that odd for an old man?
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In this week's reading we've barely met Tartar; he's introduced himself to Neville, arranged to share his runner beans, and swarmed up the rigging to the roof garden. I haven't seen him with Rosa yet, but he seems too eccentric to marry the heroine.
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Thanks, Pat H, I was pretty sure I had jumped ahead. But that's OK, it doesn't really give anything away. The scene I was referring to comes just a little later, in next week's reading. We'll worry about the swarthy Tartar later.
I've been thinking about the meeting in "Both at Their Best" when Rosa explains to Ned that their marriage isn't a good idea and exactly why. I was really impressed with her maturity. Even Ned behaves, possibly for the first time, like a grown-up. Apparently he has listened to Grewgious who tried his best to explain to Ned how important it was for him to take giving the precious ring to Rosa seriously.
"If Rosebud in her bower now waited Edwin Drood's coming with an uneasy heart, Edwin for his part was uneasy too. with far less force of purpose in his composition than the childish beauty, crowned by acclamation fairy queen of Miss Twinkleton's establishment, he had a conscience, and Mr Grewgious had pricked it. that gentleman's steady convictions of what was right and what was wrong in such a case as his, were neither to be frowned aside nor laughed aside. They would not be moved. But for the dinner in Staple Inn, and but for the ring he carried in the breast-pocket of his coat, he would have drifted into their wedding day without another pause for real thought, loosely trusting that all would go well, left alone. But that serious putting him on his truth to the living and the dead had brought him to a check. He must either give the ring to Rosa, or he must take it back. Once put into this narrowed way of action, it was curious that he began to consider Rosa's claims upon him more unselfishly than he had ever considered them before, and began to be less sure of himself than he had ever been in all his easy-going days."
Sorry to quote at such length, but the passage shows that Ned is growing up, that he does have a conscience and a thought for someone else beside himself after all. I begin to think better of him.
Rosa is also at her best. As soon as they begin their walk, Rosa broaches the topic--bravely I think. First she says she must say something serious to him and then, just a few lines later, she says straight out, "That's a dear boy! Eddy, let us be courageous. Let us change to brother and sister from this day forth."
Rosa explains to Ned that he always thought highly of her, just the as others did, and that this simply isn't enough. There needs to be more of a basis if they are to marry. Added to the points that Grewgious made which Ned has already been thinking of, he finally comes to:
"It was new and strange to him to have himself presented to himself so clearly, in a glass of her holding up. He had always patronized her, in his superiority to her share of woman's wit. Was that but another instance of something radically amiss in the terms on which they had been gliding towards a life-long bondage?"
Did everyone notice that the earlier Chapter 9 was entitled "Birds in the Bush"? That's the one with the interview between Grewgious and Rosa where the terms of her father's will and his wishes are explained to her. Alliteratively--all those b's--it connects to this one.
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Maryal, I too thought that Rosa (the same Rosa who had hidden her face under an apron and sucked her thumb), was wonderfully mature and courageous to bring up the matter to Ned of their not being completely suited to one another for marriage. She and Ned could have just drifted into the marriage just as they had been doing all of their lives. Ned confirms that he would have brought up the subject if she had not. They are both growing in our estimation.
I've not been paying attention to the chapter titles. I think you are right that they provide clues about what we're to take from the chapter.
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I was just trying to work up a post about Rosa and Edwin, but I think you said it better, Deems and Marcie. For the first time in his life, Edwin is taking Rosa seriously, as a human being to be respected and listened to. Before, she was just a kind of trinket, his by right, taken for granted. Now he can no longer call her "Pussy". You don't talk to a real person that way.
Mr. Grewgious shook Edwin up, made him face up to what he was doing. In Rosa's case, though, she already realized what she had to do, and Grewgious just gave her the ammunition and extra strength she needed.
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There was obviously something missing in the relationship between Rosa and Edwin, more so for Rosa than for Edwin. But even she admitted that they must both appear ridiculous in their behavior when together. The important decision had been made for them by their fathers, and nothing was left for them to arouse the true lovers' instincts.
Didn't they all try to teach Edwin how to be a lover. Carefree and careless Edwin showed the world his feelings in that lighthearted, naive sketch of Rosa appropriated by Jasper and hung above his mantlepiece. Do we ever hear how Jasper felt about the 'picture'?
Neville in a fit of jealousy told Edwin in no uncertain terms re his failure as a lover, and got an insult from Edwin for his trouble. Now, if he, Neville, could paint a 'picture'....but is only taunted by Edwin.
When Mr. Grewgious paints his 'picture' of a true lover, Edwin comes to his senses, and realizes what is missing between him and Rosa. I was struck by Edwin paying attention to the one and not the other. After Mr Grewgious, Edwin was prepared to listen to Rosa.
I'm expecting fireworks between Neville and Tartar over Rosa. And eventually Rosa and Edwin fall into each others' arms.
Mr. Datchery? I think he's a snooping writer who smells a story.
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Yes, Jonathan. Grewgious helped Edwin wake up.
Thoughts of Helena were already crossing Edwin's mind as he and Rosa were disentangling their relationship. If Edwin is alive, I don't think that he and Rosa will get together.
I am very puzzled about Datchery and who he/she is.
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I bet Datchery will turn out to be the detective, but I'd sure like to know who put him on the case.
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Chapter 14 (When Shall These Three Meet Again?) is a nice little bit of melodrama. We follow each of the three diners: Neville, full of misgivings, Edwin, a strange warning from the woman opium-smoker casting a gloom over his mood, and Jasper, busy and cheerful, as in turn they go up the postern stair. Then, nothing. All we know is that a monster storm blows all night, and when morning comes Jasper is frantically looking for his nephew.
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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Here I am. Just checking in and marking.
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Good morning, everyone. I forgot to answer Joan P's question about swine flu at the Academy. Last I heard we had three confirmed cases; all have recovered or are in process. Apparently the mids are examined every morning before they go to class. Uh-huh. I'm wondering just who does these inspections. Anyway, the flu shot will be available in early to mid-October, and I'm betting that our students will get the shots. Since all the mids (about 4000 give or take) live under one roof and eat in a common dining room, we are more susceptible to quick spread than other places. Keep fingers crossed.
Pat H brings up "When Shall These Three Meet Again" which follows Neville, Edwin and Jasper as they live through the last day we will ever see Ned again. Dickens has changed the witch's question from Macbeth, "When shall we three meet again?" by only one word. Plus the chapter ends with a violent storm, much like the storm in Macbeth that occurs the night Macbeth kills King Duncan. Things are so bad that night that chimneys topple and horses start attacking each other.
I don't think there are any references in Drood to one of my favorite lines from Macbeth. It belongs to one of the witches, "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes," and introduces Macbeth. Certainly Dickens admired the play, and he has picked a good one since it is the bloodiest of all Shakespeare's plays as well as the shortest of the tragedies. Duncan's murder occurs early in the play to be followed by many others, including Macduff's little children.
There's a small piece of evidence in this chapter that I overlooked when I first read it. When Ned discovers that his watch has stopped, he goes to a jeweler who, in conversation, tells him that his Uncle Jasper had kept an inventory of "all the jewelry his gentleman relative ever wore; namely, his watch and chain, and shirt-pin." A very strange observation--what on earth is Jasper doing paying such close attention to Ned's personal jewelry? Remember the diary he showed to Crisparkle? The one he says is a record of not only his life, but also Ned's? I'm thinking that since Jasper does not know about the ring, it would have figured heavily in evidence against him. If he killed Ned, he would keep the ring if he discovered it, and if he did not discover the ring, it could be used later to identify the body if it has been concealed within the crypt.
As Edwin goes away with his watch, he thinks "Dear old Jack! If I were to make an extra crease in my neck-cloth, he would think it worth noticing!" If Ned weren't so self-involved, he might wonder why his uncle watches him so obsessively.
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Welcome back, Andy! Talk to us. What have you been thinking, and how are you?
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Thank you, Pat H, once again--for marking the heading.
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Here's Lenox's speech from Macbeth, telling of the night before:
LENNOX
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
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Yes, jewelry is turning out to be important. When Edwin decides for the last time not to tell Rosa about the ring, "Among the mighty store of chains that are for ever forging, day and night, in the vast ironworks of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small conclusion, riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag."
The ring will serve to identify the body, or be found in the lime pit, or be taken by someone involved in Edwin's fate and be traced back, or will be found and because Rosa doesn't know about it not be recognized for what it is.
The watch taken from the weir has already supplied evidence. The jeweler testifies that he had wound it at two in the afternoon, that it had run down before being put in the water, and had not been rewound. (How did he know that, I wonder?) Evidently you had to rewind your watch a lot, since they seem to think that means less than 24 hours. Does it say how long in anyone's notes?
It was a pretty good trick on Crisparkle's part to spot the shirt pin stuck in the mud at the bottom.
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Pat H-- "Among the mighty store of chains that are for ever forging, day and night, in the vast ironworks of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that small conclusion, riveted to the foundations of heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag."
Yes, Dickens leaves a pretty big clue here. Ned didn't tell Rosa about the ring, but Grewgious knows and would be able to identify it (if/when the body shows up--which it has to if you think about it). He also knows all about the meeting he had with Ned.
Mr. Crisparkle knows about the diary.
Mr. Grewgious knows how Jasper reacted when he learned that Rosa and Ned were not to marry.
Heaven only knows what Datchery would uncover.
And then there's Durdles who knows about the midnight expedition. (I'd like to know who hired him myself, Pat H.)
And Rosa can testify to how dreadful Jasper made her feel whenever he stared at her intently.
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I've been wondering why Mr. Grewgious hasn't mentioned the fact that Edwin promised to return the ring to him when he came on Christmas Eve if he decided against going ahead with the wedding plans. That seems to be a good reason for Edwin to have stayed in Cloisterham until Mr. G. arrived. But then, to whom would Grewgious have explained about the rather valuable ring? I had concerns that he might tell Jasper, but Grewgious seems to suspect something is not right with Jasper, doesn't he?
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Looks like I won't be able to get another copy of the book before we finish but I did request and receive another pertaining to Drood, entitled, "The D Case or The Truth About The Mystery of Edwin Drood" by Charles Dickens and Carlo Fruttero&Franco Lucentini.
Advertised by the London Times supplement: The greatest detectives in the world come up with a solution to the Mystery of Edwin Drood. "Playfully brilliant," says the Times.
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Question: Why would Edwin have the jeweler wind and set his watch if he is expected to perform that task himself everyday? Is Dickens getting ready to give us some more clues??
Isn't the time that the jeweler quotes, 20 minutes past 2, the same time on the watch found in the weir??
Deems asks how often one must wind a watch. I remember my father telling me to wind my Mickey Mouse watch twice a day, but not all the way. Anyone else get those instructions??
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Joan P--Yes, Grewgious has a lot going for him, despite being an angular man, and he did witness the spectacle of Jasper on the floor. He knows enough not to speak to him about the ring.
Anne--That sounds like a very interesting book you're going to look at. Do you know the publication date?
For those of you who don't have the Penguin edition, there is interesting information in the Introduction:
"John Forster, Dickens's first biographer learned the main details of the story, either from another letter, which no longer survives, or from Dickens's own lips. What remains therefore we must accept as Forster's summary or paraphrase from an unidentified yet evidently authentic source. In it we see an outline for the novel as definitive as the keel of a ship laid out in a dry dock. In the chapter 'Last Book', Forster provides this account:
"The story . . . was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his uncle; the originality of which was to consist in the review of the murderer's career by himself at the close, when its temptation were to be dwelt upon as if, not he the culprit, but some other man, were tempted. The last chapters were to be written in the condemned cell, to which his wickedness, all elaborately elicited from him as if told of another, had brought him."
I break off the quote here and will pick up the remainder of it later.
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It looks like mechanical watches are supposed to be wound daily. See http://reviews.ebay.com/How-often-should-I-wind-my-watch_W0QQugidZ10000000004568839
Good question about why Edwin stops at the jeweler to get his watch wound if he supposedly does that himself each day. In addition to it being a plot point, Edwin was killing time before the dinner with Jasper and Neville. I think, since his watch had stopped, he needed the jeweler to set it as well as wind it since, presumably, Edwin didn't know the exact time since he was out and about.
Ann, I too have that same book from my library, with detectives from various works of fiction (Poirot, Hastings, Sherlock Holmes, Watson, Father Brown, etc) meeting at a conference, the purpose of which is to provide the endings to various books and pieces of music that were left unfinished. The book focuses on the group of detectives working on Dicken's last novel. The book was published in 1989.
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That's the one, Marcie. And so we have in this book the mention of first detective in English literature, Bucket, who first appeared in "Bleak House".
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OK then, I am right on focus. I've just caught up with all of your posts.
Maryal, are you saying that Dickens TOLD Forster of his ending? How old is (was) this biographer?
What remains therefore we must accept as Forster's summary or paraphrase from an unidentified yet evidently authentic source.
Who would have given this to him?
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Andy--I'm not sure how old Forster was, but he was working with Dickens on the biography. The introduction explains that somehow--either from a letter we no longer have from Dickens or from Dickens in conversation, Forster got the outline of Drood. OK, going to check on Forster.
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From the Victorian Web's article on Charles Dickens:
"John Forster (1812-1876) An accomplished journalist, biographer, and historian, Forster was Dickens' best friend, literary advisor, and biographer. Forster proof-read nearly all of Dickens' works in progress. A man of great common sense, Forster provided the frequently impetuous Dickens sound personal, literary, and business advise. Dickens relied heavily on Forster to take care of business during his frequent trips away from London. Forster was also one of the players in Dickens' amateur acting troupe.
Forster was drama critic and later editor of the Examiner, putting him in the center of London literary life. After Dickens' death in 1870, Forster published The Life of Charles Dickens, drawn heavily on hundreds of letters from Dickens through the years and still the definitive Dickens biography although some facts about Dickens' life were suppressed. Forster also wrote biographys of Goldsmith, Defoe, and Swift among others."
Dickens lived from 1812-1870, so he and Forster were exact contemporaries.
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hmm very interesting Deems. He was a drama critic you say? Perhaps he was insturmental in encouraging Dickens to "change" his genre of writing.
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Love it Andy! I've been looking for more information on Forster and just discovered that he also served on the "lunacy commission." Hmmm, as you would say.
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Hello again ! As you would guess I have fallen by the wayside and am well behind with the reading - MDH is rather ill and takes much of my time at present and indeed most of my concentration - though I am told and believe that better days lie ahead.
Have read the posts to the point where my reading stops and have gained much from the insights and information brought forward by everyone as well as the conjecture regarding who did what to whom and how.
I plan to catch up if I can but I fear I am destined never to succumb to the Dickens magic that grips so many of his readers.
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Gum- do not desert us! Dickens is funny, he really is. We'll wait for you to catch up (you have one day.) ::)
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I'm considering what John Forster had to say about what Dickens confided in him, his longtime friend and recognized official biographer. Is there any reason to believe that Dickens would not have been honest with him about how he intended to finishe his novel? I'd like to know WHEN he had that conversation with John Forster. It seems he hadn't figured out the plot completely, as he wrote each episode. Had he even planned his big ending? Was he still puzzling on the day he died about how to leave his readers?
I've read that Wilkie Collins was very angry with John Forster for the way in which he prepared and wrote his "Life of Charles Dickens," the two men (Forster and Dickens) were inseparable friends - and Wilkie and Dickens were on the outs at the end. Elsewhere I read there was more criticism of Forster and his treatment of the Drood mystery in his rush to get out his biography. Dickens' daughter Kate agreed with Forster.
If you ask me, Dickens hadn't yet worked out the grand ending - perhaps he even meant to leave it as a MYSTERY- wouldn't that be something?
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Chapter 16--"Devoted." Were you surprised that Crisparkle swam in the weir in December?
Surprised? That's putting it mildly. Wasn't that some scene up on the weir? (A weir - small dam.) We already know that Crisparkle is in good physical condition- remember he's a boxer. How old is he? He lives with his mother - but she is quite elderly, isn't she? Of course in Dickens time, 50 might be considered "elderly".
But for a 30 year old man, give or take a few years, to take off his clothes at the end of December and dive into icy water, well, this is quite a fete, isn't it? Almost superhuman. And then to keep diving after he finds the watch, looking for a body. Also, consider how he came upon this weir. He's climbed UP nearly two miles away from where others have searched.
"He had a strange idea, that something unusual hung about the place. What was it Where was it?"
Edwin took his watch to the jeweler to have it wound and set. Annie, it does make sense that Edwin had simply let his watch run down and stopped in to have the jeweler reset the time...and rewind it. 2:20 - if the watch needed rewinding every 24 hours - and stopped at 2:20, was thrown into the water AFTER it had run down, we are told. This indicates that the murderer had held on to the jewelry until Christmas day - in the afternoon, after it was discovered that Edwin had gone missing and everyone was out looking for him.
BUT, is this ALL the evidence we have that a murder has been committed? The wristwatch and the shirt pin? Crisparkle found NO BODY. Until a body is found, I'm thinking that Dickens could come up with any number of reasons to explain away a murder at the end of his novel. The name of the novel is NOT The Murder of Edwin Drood - but The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I think Dickens was clever enough to do whatever he wanted at the end of his tale.
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Ah Gum, bless you. A difficult thing to see a loved one down, isn't it? My thoughts and prayers go out to him and to you. May his condition improve - faster than you expect!
I've been hunting for information on the Dickens' biographer - I think there was much criticism of his biography when it came out - While hunting, I came across an interesting resource on Drood - found in the National Library of Austalia? Do you know where that is? Apparently there is much information in Australia on Dickens - there's a center for Dickens' studies. I also learned that two of Dickens' sons emigrated to Austalia. Did you know that?
So glad you are with us, representing the Aussies, even if you are not now and may never become a Droodian!
Don't forget to take care of yourself, too...
Hugs,
Joan
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Gum, I'm glad that you're still with us even if you haven't been able to keep up with the reading. I too hope that your loved one will regain health quickly.
JoanP, I am thinking somewhat along your lines. The novel was coming out in installments, so, theoretically, Dickens could revise his thinking on the ending chapters at any time before they were published.
The short biography that I saw on the History International channel and various sources on the Internet indicate that Dickens later novels were "darker" than those he wrote early in his life, due to the deaths of several of his relatives, including his father and a daughter in the early 1850s.
I don't think that Edwin was going to be found alive at the end of the story. For one thing, where would he be all this time? He wouldn't have left Rosa and others to worry about him and not contact them at all.
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"I've read that Wilkie Collins was very angry with John Forster for the way in which he prepared and wrote his "Life of Charles Dickens," the two men (Forster and Dickens) were inseparable friends - and Wilkie and Dickens were on the outs at the end".
I can see the picture: Dickens' friends squabbling over his memory at the end. Two people who are friends of the same pwerson are not always friends of each other-- often there's some kind of rivalry.
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After years of wondering what a weir was, I finally saw a picture of one.
http://www.lakesarah.com/lakesarahpages/lakesarahpictures/weir/1976_5_06_lakesarahdam1.jpg (http://www.lakesarah.com/lakesarahpages/lakesarahpictures/weir/1976_5_06_lakesarahdam1.jpg)
There's nothing in the picture to give an impression of size. It's a small dam in a river, whose purpose seems to be to keep something from coming upriver (large fish, boats?). I saw one on a TV program about the Loch Ness monster. The narrator tried to get upriver in a boat, to see if nessie could have done the same. The boat failed, so they concluded that Nessie couldn't have come that way.
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Thanks, Joan, for thinking of looking for a picture of a weir. I've found another at http://images.clipartof.com/small/30615-Clipart-Illustration-Of-A-Vintage-Victorian-St-Patricks-Day-Scene-Of-Irelands-Old-Weir-Bridge-In-Killarney-Circa-1910.jpg
When first introduced to us in Chapter 1, Mr. Crisparkle is noted as an avid swimmer:
"Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, fair and rosy, and perpetually
pitching himself head-foremost into all the deep running water in
the surrounding country; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, early riser,
musical, classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured, social,
contented, and boy-like; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon and good man,
lately 'Coach' upon the chief Pagan high roads, but since promoted
by a patron (grateful for a well-taught son) to his present
Christian beat; betakes himself to the gatehouse, on his way home
to his early tea."
Mr. Crisparkle is 35 years old. In the chapter when we meet his mother, there is a sentence: "...her son, Minor Canon nevertheless, standing with bent head to hear it, he being within five years of forty..."
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I don't think that Edwin was going to be found alive at the end of the story. For one thing, where would he be all this time? He wouldn't have left Rosa and others to worry about him and not contact them at all.
Actually, before Deems quoted Forster's description of how "Drood" was going to end, I had come up with a very ingenious solution that would account for almost all of the facts, but leave Edwin alive.
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Interesting conversation about Forster and his biography. Joan P says, "I've been hunting for information on the Dickens' biographer - I think there was much criticism of his biography when it came out."
I think the problem that the biography encountered and the criticism Forster received had to do with his use of so many of Dickens' letters which, of course, revealed private thoughts and feelings. Dickens was pretty much a demigod before he died, and when the public found out that he was quite human indeed, they didn't like it. So the biography got blamed for being what we now want a biography to be, truthful to the facts. Because Forster was Dickens' best friend and trusted critic, he had many many letters from Dickens from which to glean information.
Remember letters--that's what we did before email to keep in touch.
Joan K--Thank you for the weir!! And there's another sentence I wouldn't have imagined writing. I didn't know the word at all, but that's exactly what it is. All we have to do is imagine it in December and it will be just right. And thanks, Marcie, for the painting of a weir.
I went back this morning and reread the part at the end of Chapter 15 where Grewgious tells Jasper that the engagement has been broken. Just as he is beginning the announcement, he notices Jasper, and we have this description, part of which I missed the first time around:
"Mr Grewgious saw a staring white face, and two quivering white lips, in the easy chair, and saw two muddy hands gripping its sides. But for the hands, he might have thought he had never seen the face."
The part I missed before was the muddy hands. We have seen Jasper looking white and quivery before, but those hands must have gotten muddy doing something or other, like manual labor, like burying a body.
I don't know just how to read the last sentence. Help is more than welcome. What does "But for the hands, he mights have thought he had never seen the face" mean?
At the news of the broken engagement and of Grewgious' agreeing to break the news to Jasper because Ned didn't want to disappoint him, there are three short descriptions of Jasper's reaction, broken by the speeches of Grewgious.
"Mr Grewgious saw a ghastly figure rise, open-mouthed, from the easy chair, and lift its outspread hands towards its head."
. . .
"Mr Grewgious saw the ghastly figure throw back its head, clutch its hair with its hands, and turn with a writhing action from him."
. . .
"Mr Gregious heard a terrible shriek, and saw no ghastly figure, sitting or standing; saw nothing but a heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor."
Pretty damning evidence, I think, especially those "torn and miry clothes" given that soon Crisparkle will find the evidence that is meant to be found (or maybe just removed from the body so that it will not be identified) in a weir. And the muddy hands. Jonathan has already mentioned that long black scarf that Jasper wore.
I don't think we were meant to wonder if a murder had been committed but rather to wonder what had brought Jasper to the point of killing his nephew. The mysteries that are left for us are those of what happened to all the other characters and who did the discovering and who knew what and how did Jasper react in the end.
It will be fascinating to see what Matthew Pearl does in The Last Dickens. I hope everyone here will join in that discussion too.
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I missed the "muddy" hands too, Deems! I thought that the hands gripping the chair were signs of upset that Grewgious noticed. "But for the hands, he mights have thought he had never seen the face." But now that you've noted that the hands were muddy and his clothes torn and miry (muddy/swampy), those seem like big clues that Jasper was up to something just before Grewgious found him at home.
PatH, I'd love to hear your storyline regarding Edwin.
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Pat H--I missed your message. I for one would love to hear how all the evidence could be accounted for and leave Edwin alive! Please tell us. I'm not very good at figuring out mysteries.
Marcie--I'm glad you missed it too. There are abundant reasons for rereading anything complicated, aren't there?
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I feel as if I'm jumping the gun talking about conclusions to Dickens' novel before we're finished discussing what he did write, but for what it's worth, here's an article on Lady Audley's Secret - a novel Dickens would have been familiar with -
As Editor-in-Chief of All the Year Round, Dickens closely followed the serial fiction market, and undoubtedly would have been aware that Braddon was publishing Lady Audley's Secret in The Sixpenny Magazine on a monthly basis from January through December 1862. After Tinsley Brothers published it in volume form as a triple-decker in October 1862 (thereby scooping the ending in the serial), Braddon's novel was serialised again, from 21 March 1863 through 15 August 1863, with twenty-two illustrations (one per weekly instalment), culminating with "The Wanderer Returned at Last," the reunion of the protagonist, the attorney Robert Audley, and the supposedly murdered first husband of Lady Audley, George Talboys (Vol. 38, no. 966, part 22). The novel, also adapted for the stage in 1863, must have come to Dickens's attention by the time he began writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Although The Mystery of Edwin Drood does not offer its readers the forbidden delights of the bigamy plot originated by Braddon, it does involve the disappearance and presumed murder of one of its central characters; further, the reader is reasonably assured of the murderer's identity and, of course, is consistently led to believe that a murder has taken place, and the body cleverly disposed of by the perpetrator, who, though possibly insane, is certainly a criminal mastermind when its comes to murder and deception
Braddon's solution in Lady Audley's Secret, may well be one that Dickens had in mind when he and Collins collaborated on the initial wrapper. In essence, Lady Audley erroneously believes that she has fatally shot her first husband, George Talboys, and that his body is safely disposed of in a well on the Audley estate. In fact, however, George had been rescued from the well by the brutish but devious publican, Luke Marks (who is married to Lady Audley's maid, Phoebe), and is out of the country. The novel (and its dramatic adaptation of 1863) concludes with the return of George Talboys from New York. Many believe that the figure at the bottom of the Drood wrapper in the Tyrolian hat is Edwin himself rather than Helen in disguise. If so, then Dickens was, at least initially, thinking of resolving Drood's disappearance in a similar manner, bringing him back from abroad to confront his would-be murderer in the crypt of the cathedral.
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/drood/braddon.html
Just a reminder - We don't have a body! Dickens could have ended his story any way he wanted!
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Joan P is correct. We don't have a body. We also don't seem to have an Edwin. But we will, next week, consider other possibilities, such as Pat H's solution that doesn't involve the death of Edwin.
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I was busy sawing up bamboo all afternoon, and now have so much to say that it won't all get done tonight, but here goes.
I didn't miss the muddy hands, but didn't know what to make of it. The whole description of Jasper here is almost surreal, very effective, but you can't take details literally. ("a lead-colored face...on its surface dreadful starting drops or bubbles, as if of steel." "saw nothing but a heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor.") I looked back, and saw that this scene takes place late the day after the dinner, when everyone has been dragging through pools and streams for hours. Jasper would have been part of this effort, and have gotten muddy in the process. If he hadn't joined in, he would certainly have cleaned himself by then.
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I'm still reading the library book I started with (the perfume has aired out enough so I don't choke anymore) and I've gotten rather fond of it. It was published in 1950, 40% of the way back from now to when the book was written, good paper, sewn, original dust jacket, and an introduction by Michael Innes (detective story writer/literature prof) which will no doubt be useful when I read it.
It also has the illustrations by Sir Luke Fildes, and the one at the head of this discussion page has the title "Mr. Grewgious has his Suspicions". If that's the original title, it's a further clue to Dickens' intentions, since no suspicions have been mentioned in the text at this point.
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PatH--Drat. Bubble burst. Told you I wasn't good at mysteries. I almost never figure them out; when I do, I figure it's a fluke. You're right. The time is not right. Grrrrrrrr.
Yes, the original illustrations all have titles and this one is "Mr Grewgious has his suspicions. Fildes worked closely with Dickens on the illustrations. He was a new illustrator for Dickens, a young man.
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ok I am well aware that my mental status has been questionable, to say the least lately -but will someone please look and confirm the fact that Chapter XX111 entitled The Dawn Again, is the very last chapter of this mystery, before Mr. Dickens retired and went to join his ancestors?
I'm reading away tonight and all of the sudden, thinking that I am starting part two of this story I retire to the bedroom with my book and start reading about Master Humphrey's Clock.
How nice, I think, one more character called Master Humphrey.
Apparently this is a lesser-known story of Dickens because I have no idea who these people are. Now I've followed Edwin, Rosa, Mr. Crispsparkle, et. al and up pops Master Humphrey all of a sudden!
Comically I sat up and started shaking the bloody, damned book thinking that Amazon had gyped me.
What the h***? They've left out the rest of the story.
Before I panic I have but one question-- Is that all there is? XX111 chapters??? ???
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Confirmed
That's all in my book.
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eeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk, Pat.
I'd like to resurrect him, myself.
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We don't even know he would be able to tell us, since he mightnot have settled on his ending.
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Questions for your consideration this week: Chapters 19-23
1. Chapter 19--Shadow on the Sun-Dial--what is the significance of the title?
2. What is Jasper willing to sacrifice for Rosa? Were you surprised by his declaration of love? Was Rosa?
3. Chapter 20--A Flight. Is it a good idea for Rosa to go to Mr. Grewgious? Does he seem less "angular" and "dry" now that we've seen more of him?
4. Chapter 21--A Recognition. Mr Tartar has a history, it seems. What do you think Dickens might have planned for him? How old is he?
5. Chapter 22--A Gritty State of Things Comes on. Can you picture Tartar's home and the conversation between Rosa and Helena Landless? Which parts of the description stand out?
6. Why does Billickin object to signing the lease with her Christian name?
7. Are the Billickin and Miss Twinkleton worthy opponents?
8. Why does Miss Twinkleton expurgate all the love scenes when reading to Rosa?
9. Chapter 23--The Dawn Again. Did you notice the shift back to present tense early in the chapter?
10. Why does the Princess Puffer follow Jasper from London to Cloisterham?
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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Here's the other Macbeth reference I noticed. In Chapter X, we describe Mrs. Crisparkle's herb closet and how she doses her son, ending up with: "...he would quietly swallow what was given him, merely taking a corrective dip of hands and face into the great bowl of dried roseleaves, and into the other great bowl of dried lavender, and then would go out, as confident in the sweetening powers of Cloisterham Weir and a wholesome mind, as Lady Macbeth was hopeless of those of all the seas that roll."
If we're really going to watch Jasper come to grief, write his confession, maybe disintegrate in the process, that's a bit of foreshadowing.
Something else, not Macbeth specific: the front of my book has a list of characters, and they are arranged in the Shakesperian way--all the men first, then all the women.
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Andy--My book only has 23 chapters too. What the h__!
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Pat, you['re kidding? Shakespearian way? Is there anyway that you can scan that to put in here. Pat W would help you, I'm sure, or Jane. How interesting Shakespearian, it is indeed.
Maryal, you didn't know that either? Our fearless leader? haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Take me to river with Edwin!
With all of these reference I do believe the entire cast is STONED!
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Oh, but he has settled on his ending. He knew the ending and described it to someone, a friend, mayby??
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Hello everyone. Today has been a killer what with the wrapping up of pre-registration for next semester which entailed the tracking down of one of my advisees. I promise to do better tomorrow. Meanwhile, everyone has a chance to read the final chapters, in which we discover. . .but I won't ruin it for you.
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Well, I read to the end last night, and among other things, it messes up my theory of how Edwin might still be alive. I’ve been wrong about most of my guesses, so I might as well summarize my thoughts. The basis was the appearance, in Cloisterham on Christmas Eve, of the old woman who runs the opium den. How did she come to be there? Jasper wants to get rid of Edwin, but can’t quite bring himself to commit murder, so he enlists her aid to shanghai Edwin (the woman has contact with sailors, and could no doubt find some willing ship). Edwin, who has been stunned or drugged, wakes up to find himself on the way to some distant port, out of the action for now. The ring would either have been stolen and sold, then traced back to the perpetrators, or used by Edwin when he finally gets back to prove his identity.
There are a lot of holes—for one, why did Jasper throw the watch and pin into the weir? Anyway, chapter 23 makes it quite clear that the woman wasn’t on that kind of footing with Jasper, hadn’t yet figured out who he was by Christmas Eve.
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That was an imaginative possible ending, Pat.
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I started looking at question #1 and reread that chapter - wow, didn't Dickens have a way with words? A shadow on the sundial! The sinister Jasper casts his own shadow when he reappears to visit Rosa. He is the epitome of a shadow- obscure, dark, gloomy. Shadow is also defined as intimation, suspicion and vestige. That's him, that's Jasper! He beclouds everything and everyone, particularly poor Rosa who apparently has a morbid fear of him already. He is so dark and "shadowy". I missed that the first time I read it. I have more to say about that nasty man but must hit the Tuesday afternoon flicks with friends. Be back this eve to discuss this menace.
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Great points, Alf. When we first meet him, Jasper is described as "dark." He does seem like a shadow is over him, even, at times, a film over his eyes. His whole outlook on life is clouded.
Yet he appears devoted to his nephew, Edwin Drood. How can that be?
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PatH--I'm sorry that your theory didn't match the facts, but being somewhat of a bobblehead when it comes to coming up with any theories while reading (or viewing) a mystery, I admire you for trying. I especially like the idea of Edwin being shanghaied. That experience would teach him something that engineering in Egypt would not.
Andy--I'm also impressed with how menacing Jasper is in "Shadow on the Sun-Dial." We begin to see why Rosa has been so very frightened of him all along, how she wanted to avoid even encountering him on the street when she was walking with Edwin, and I can imagine how uncomfortable those singing lessons were to her. She tells Helena how his looking at her lips and watching every move makes her feel disoriented.
Rosa shrinks from Jasper and seems to sense when he is about to take her hand which she withdraws, but she also feels compelled by him, under his spell, sort of like mesmerism in which Dickens was interested. I think of Jasper as Rasputin. Of course he's younger, beardless, and not Russian.
And from this awful man who terrifies her, Rosa must hear, "Rosa, even when my dear boy was affianced to you, I loved you madly; even when I thought his happiness in having you for his wife was certain, I loved you madly; even when I strove to make him more ardently devoted to you, I loved you madly; even when he gave me the picture of your lovely face so carelessly traduced by him, which I feigned to hang always in my sight for his sake, but worshiped in torment for yours, I loved you madly."
Oh YUCK. Run, Rosa, run away. Hide. Don't let this man have even so much as a brief meeting with you.
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Marcie- I don't think that he gave a tinker's damn for Edwin.
Threatening voice with eyes fixed on Rosa, I can almost hear him spit this statement out! What a #$^&*
"Much as my dear boy was, unhappily, too self'conscious and self-satisfied (I'll draw no parallel between you and him in that respect) to love as he should have loved, or as anyone in his place would have loved-- must have loved!"
I hate that man more now than ever. He's a demented narcissist and he's ticked because Rosa shuns him and he knows how much she finds him distasteful.
Good grief he outwardly threatens her.
"his face looks so wicked and menacing as he stand leaning against the sundial-- setting as it were, his black mark upon the very face of day." There i s the answer to this chapter's title.
He makes ME cringe and I'm not a delicate little debutante as Ms. Rosa is.
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Charlie wins again. Here's part of an article from The New York Times.
LOS ANGELES — And the big winner at the 2009 Emmy Awards is ... Charles Dickens!
The PBS presentation of the BBC Drama Productions adaptation of “Little Dorrit,” the sprawling Dickens tale featuring a 19th-century Ponzi scheme (one that predated Charles Ponzi), won seven Emmys this year, including three of those presented during Sunday night’s prime-time broadcast — the most of any show on television last year.
Few who have seen it would argue that the five-part, eight-hour project was undeserving of the awards for best mini-series and outstanding writing and directing of a mini-series, movie or dramatic special.
By EDWARD WYATT
Published: September 21, 2009
NY Times
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What did Jasper really feel toward Edwin? When I read the first few chapters, there seemed something oddly unwholesome about the relationship--close, but not in a good way. I should reread to check, but sometimes when you go back you miss what you saw the first time. Anyway, there is some sort of powerful emotion there; maybe he likes being in control of Edwin.
Control is surely a lot of what he wants of Rosa. He has tried to dominate her during music lessons, and now he says he doesn't care if she hates him, just so he can possess her. He threatens her that if she doesn't give in to him, he'll see that Neville is convicted of Edwin's murder, whether guilty or not.
She can't really be surprised, but she's terrified, and is absolutely right to fly to the protection of Mr. Grewgious.
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Another example of my poor guessing: I said Tartar was too eccentric to be paired with the heroine, but Rosa is obviously very taken with him, and he with her. He seems less eccentric now, too. Crisparkle is 35. Tartar was C's fag, which implies he was about 5 years younger, about 30. (In British public schools the incoming boys are "fags", sort of servants, to the Senior boys.)
While Rosa and Helena are talking to each other through the beanstalks, it also becomes obvious that Helena is much taken with Mr. Crisparkle, so there we have the two heroines possibly married off. Poor Neville.
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When we spent the night with Durdles in the Cathedral, I was interested in the angels on the corbels, and wanted to find a picture. I eventually came to this site, which has more information any human being could possible want to know about Rochester Cathedral. However, it has page numbers on the right hand side. If you scroll down to pages 61-62, you will see a nice drawing of the Gates to the Cathedral, which the text identifies as Jasper's gateway in Edwin Drood. I'm guessing that the left, narrower, side, with a small door is Jasper's doorway, and you go up a stair to the floor above, while the right hand side is where Datchery sat with his door open, watching all and sundry.
http://www.basiccarpentrytechniques.com/English%20Medieval%20Cathedrals/Bell%27s%20Cathedrals%20Rochester%20Cathedral/Bell%27s%20Cathedrals%20Rochester%20Cathedral.htm (http://www.basiccarpentrytechniques.com/English%20Medieval%20Cathedrals/Bell%27s%20Cathedrals%20Rochester%20Cathedral/Bell%27s%20Cathedrals%20Rochester%20Cathedral.htm)
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Oops, forgot to mention that some disappointing drawings of the corbels are on pages 89 and 92.
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Oh PatH, that link to Rochester Cathedral is such a find! We need to keep it in the Archives with this discussion! It is wonderful - and it made me so sad to see it! To think I was in London a few weeks ago, only a twenty minute train ride from seeing it. Not just the outside - the innards are open to the public!
Such a missed opportunity! I'm sick about it! See what you've done, Pat? :'(
I agree, I don't think Jasper EVER felt anything for his "dear boy." Anything but envy, that is. He's like that two-faced Janus. He only acts as if he cares about Edwin.
"A look of intentness and intensity - a look of hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection - is now and ever afterwards, on Jasper's face, whenever the Jasper face is addressed in this direction."
Had Dickens lived to write more, I'm sure we would have learned more about Jasper's family history - and how he became Edwin's "guardian." I'll bet the resentment has always been there, only to become more intense when Jasper began to covet Rosa.
It is Mr. Grewgious who has my attention. The Angular man who appears to have no feelings - "Who could have told whether he had known ambition or disappointment?"
What is his history? He lives alone, seems so lonely. He fawns over Rosa as if she is a china doll - and makes several references to her dear deceased mother. He's downright chivalrous. Do we know how he came to be Rosa's ward? Whatever happened to her father - I don't remember, do you?
Rosa's instincts were right on - she knew he was the person to run to for protection. A father figure. She is now among friends. Don't you feel a change in mood. Though the beastly Jasper is still at large, don't you feel the second half of the novel would have been less...noir?
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Joan P- No, unfortunately I feel quite the opposite. I believe it would have become more NOIR! As you referred to him, the two ffaced JJanus ;D (little humor there) would become more forbidding. I feel that Dickens described to us a mere foreboding of what the diabolical Jasper was capable of. He's certifiable this guy and I believe he would stoop to any means to possess what he wants. On top of that inherent malicious soul we have a junkie- never a good combination.
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But Andy, it is no longer the vulnerable maiden alone who withers under his penetrating eyes and threats. Now she has a phalanx of support - not the least of which is Tartar!
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I agree Andy that the second half would have shown us an even clearer picture of the devious and two-faced John (Jack) Jasper complete with his family history. Now that the devil is clear in his intentions toward Rosa, not to mention his threats to her--if she doesn't do as he wishes he will put her friend Helena into sorrow--how can we suppose that he will somehow turn out to be less ominous.
Of course, Joan P, you may be right in that to understand is at least partially to forgive. Maybe. Isn't it frustrating that we will never know?
Pat H--Thank you for that wonderful link to Rochester Cathedral. How I would love to be there right now to explore. Years ago my husband and I toured a number of the great Cathedrals around London but we missed Rochester. There was always so much to gawk at--and the guide books with the additional material. I still have some of them.
Maybe Tartar is intended for Helena. Surely that strong young woman who was fiercer than her brother in her defiance of the evil guardians deserves a strong man. Pat H--Thanks for the information about how old Tartar must be, as well as reminding us that "fags" were servants of the older boys in a kind of long-lasting initiation. The British public school system must have been something in Dickens' time. I'd like to time-travel back to observe classes and dorm life for about a week.
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Tartar confuses me. (not to look back) but doesn't he have white hair? At thirty? And it seems as if he is still being treatyed as if he were a servant. But he must be upper class if he went to a "public" school.
That confused me for years. In England, a "public" school means the opposite of what it does in America -- a "public" school is an elite private school. No idea how the terminology started.
PATH: the picture was wonderful -- I can picture the charactes going up those stairs one-by one to an unknown fate. (what a good touch that was).
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I just love the scene where Rosa is stepping in and out among the flowers. I think that is the scene I will remember long after the book is finished.
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JoanK - it's Datchery with the white hair, I think. White hair and black eyebrows, did you notice that? Is he someone wearing a disguise? I thought it was funny that he's got a hat, but Dickens makes a point to point out that he's always carrying it, never wearing it. Maybe he IS in disguise - someone not used to wearing a wig, he thinks his head is covered when he wears it - and forgets that he's not wearing a hat.
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Some really little detail still sitting in the back of my mind - do you remember Edwin's present to Rosa on her 19th birthday? Wasn't it odd? 19 pairs of gloves? Nothing much was said about it...Rosa didn't seem to think it was out of the ordinary. Was it customary at the time - or was it an example of how Edwin was not a very romantic young man?
I thought maybe Dickens was going to circle back and mention them...
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I just love the scene where Rosa is stepping in and out among the flowers. I think that is the scene I will remember long after the book is finished.
I read "Drood" 20 or 30 years ago, and remembered almost nothing about it, but that is the scene I remember.
Some really little detail still sitting in the back of my mind - do you remember Edwin's present to Rosa on her 19th birthday? Wasn't it odd? 19 pairs of gloves? Nothing much was said about it...Rosa didn't seem to think it was out of the ordinary.
The gloves puzzled me in a different way. There were very prudish rules back then about what items a gentleman could properly give a lady, and one was "nothing that would touch her skin". I know the rules were a little looser once the couple was engaged, and maybe hands, being extremities, were an exception, but I was startled at that present.
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Funny the parts of books you remember. I expect I will also remember Rosa going from the inside of Tartar's place, which looks like a ship, to the outside which looks like a flower garden. Even Rosa gets confused. I think the section is wonderfully written--and likely hard to do--such different scenes!
Funny also about the gloves that Edwin gave Rosa on her birthday. I didn't know that gifts from gentlemen to ladies were never to be something that would touch the skin, but Pat H, you must be right that the rules would alter somewhat for an engaged young man. Talk about "being Victorian," takes on all sorts of new meaning when you think about those gloves and whether or not they were proper.
Would it have been OK for Edwin to have given her jewelry? That would also break the touching the skin rule. How on earth did you know that, Pat H?
As for the gloves, the only thing I thought about was what an awful lot of gloves to have. Then I remembered that ladies wore them all the time (guess who was never much of a lady?) and thought poor Rosa must need a whole drawer just for gloves. Imagining that made me feel a little creepy. Sort of like the suitcase dream I used to have.
And yes, Joan P, I think the one with white hair and black eyebrows is our new friend, Datchery. Dickens does make quite a point of how often he shakes his hair. I thought that was odd.
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Could Datchery be someone in disguise? Edwin?
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I thought that 19 pairs of gloves was sort of romantic...very cute idea to give Rosa 19 of them.
I do think that Datchery is in disguise. Could it be Tartar? Some people think it's Helena (who dressed as a boy in disguise when she was young).
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The book I'm reading has no notes, but it has an excellent, though short, introduction by detective story writer Michael Innes (literary critic and English professor under his real name, J. I. M. Stewart). Almost all of this is speculation about the various theories of the ending. I don't want to dump all that into the discussion, but he does talk about who Datchery might be. One is Grewgious' clerk Bazzard (when Rosa flees to London, Grewgious says Bazzard is "...off duty here, altogether, just at present"). Other suggestions are Edwin, Helena, and Tartar. Apparently, in Victorian literature, disguises were thought to be more impenetrable than we would think.
Another thing mentioned is the cover illustration for all the installments. It's shown in our heading, but on a rather small scale. Here it is:
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/images/drdxa2.gif (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/images/drdxa2.gif)
Look at the picture in the middle of the bottom. It shows Jasper (probably) discovering, by lantern light, an immobile figure. Who's that?
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I have finished our book. To my surprise, I think that I enjoyed the book. However, I have no idea where, or how, CD planned to finish it. At times, I have thought that Edwin just went to India, early, to avoid embarrassment. But, then why were his watch and stick pin be found in the weir?
Chapter 22 really confuses me. Of what importance was that argument?
Sheila
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Sheila--I'm so glad you enjoyed the book; so did I somewhat to my surprise. I really like Dickens, but worried about it only being half a book. Despite its abbreviated nature, it has some truly fine writing--Dickens at his best--as well as characters, especially Jasper and Crisparkle, that I'd really like to know more about.
I am at school, but I'll try to answer your question about Chapter 22 when I get home where the book is.
Ditto with the illustration, Pat H. I really need to think about that one.
I'll bet Joan P can come up with something for the illustration.
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Sheila, you get caught up in Dickens writing, don't you? Even without an ending, frustrating as it is, he sure can write a story!
I have to say that Datchery's black eyebrows made me think immediately of Neville and Helena. Dickens had gone out of his way to describe their raven tresses. There was something else about Helena - how she used to go about disguised as a boy - remember that? Can Datchery be Helena? Where is she while away from Miss Twinkleton's? Is she really spending her time with Neville in London in that tiny room as he tries to study law? Helena is my first candidate for Datchery - who is clearly in disguise with that while flowing hair. The hair would have to be long and flowing to cover Helena's hair - why he shakes it, I don't have an explanation.
There's been a lot said about what the green wrapper reveals. Apparently Wilkie Collins' son, Charles, who is married to Dickens' daughter was the first illustrator. When he became too ill (opium addiction?) to carry on, Dickens met with Luke Fildes to continue to work. At that point, Dickens made some changes to the original wrapper, - Many think these changes indicate how Dickens intended to finish his novel.
Thanks for the enlargement of that wrapper, PatH - it helps us see the detail... I'll put it up here again - so you can follow along with this explanation...
(http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/images/drdxa2.gif) "The problematic figures are those that, having read the first half of the novel, we cannot confidently explain or identify, most especially the figure with the white hat in the fifth vignette. Writing in 1905, J. Cuming Walters proposed that the dark-haired, bewhiskered man holding the lantern is John Jasper, returned to the scene of the crime to confirm that Edwin is indeed dead, and that the young man in the Tyrolean white hat is Helena Landless (otherwise known as "Datchery"):
How complete would the surprise be when the watcher, seemingly a man, proved to be a woman; doubly startling when the seemingly old man proved to be a young woman; how utterly confounding to a man like Jasper, when he found, after so successfully deceiving and thwarting men all his life, that a woman brought about his downfall. [Walters 244]
While it is not unreasonable to conjecture that the mysterious figure in the white hat is Datchery (or, for that matter, Edwin Drood returned to life from abroad, or a figment of Jasper's guilty imagination), the pale skin and rounded features do not square with Helena's physiognomy. Nor is it reasonable to suppose that Jasper and others about town would have failed to penetrate the disguise, Helena being so well known to them. R. A. Proctor (1887), has suggested that the "figure in a tightly-buttoned coat and with a large hat" (Walters 245) is Drood, whom John Jasper, acting under the influence of opium, had merely thought he strangled. Yet again, Dickens scholar Andrew Lang in "The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot" (also in 1905) advanced the notion that, while the "dark and whiskered man" (Walters 246) was indeed Jasper, the features of the other person indicate that the youth is "Edwin Drood, of the Grecian nose, hyacinthine locks, and classical features, as in Sir Luke Fildes' third illustration" (cited in Walters, 246), "At the Piano." Walters' theory about a disguised Helena Landless does, however, have its supporters: in particular, Henry Smetham in a series of articles in the Rochester and Chatham Journal (1905) speculated that Helena had assumed the figure of the murdered Drood in order to terrify Jasper into confessing his guilt. Some critics resolve the mystery without worrying about the identity of Datchery; for example,
*"S. Y. E." "Dickens and his last book; A new theory." [Article in Nottingham Guardian (Jan. 9 [1912]), suggesting that Drood "sailed for the East" and was not murdered; that Neville Landless was falsely accused of killing him; that Jasper, thwarted in his criminal designs, threw himself over the Cathdral parapet, and, in dying, confessed his ill deeds.] [cited in Walters, 263]
Although the issue of the identities of the pursuers climbing the circular stair at the right-hand side of the wrapper would seem relatively trivial compared top the identity of the smooth-faced stranger in white at the bottom centre of the page, there are two distinct and quite contrary interpretations of the leader. That the uniformed police of the draft have been transformed into a party of what Penguin editor David Paroissien terms "plainclothes men" (295) is not so great a matter. If the period in which Dickens set the novel is some thirty years prior to the date of composition, the change may simply reflect an attempt to correct an anachronism, the London Metropolitan Police (i. e., the "Bobbies" in crime and detection fiction such as Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries) would not have existed when the authorities were in hot pursuit of Drood's killer. As J. R. Cohen suggests, the change may also be a deliberate attempt to inject ambiguities into the wrapper design; furthermore, the pursuers may well be a deputized "posse" such as the party of townsmen who apprehend Neville Landless on the highroad the day after Drood's disappearance. On the other hand, the location of the staircase may be limited to one of two places encountered in the letter-press: the postern of John Jasper's gatehouse, or the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral.
But who is the leader of the pursuers, if the two men wearing hats lower on the stair are, as J. R. Cohen proposes, Tartar and Crisparkle (whom she selects simply on the grounds that Dickens had planned to marry them to Rosa and Helena respectively, and because he had mentioned to Collins that he had thought of having Neville die in the pursuit of the real murderer)? The top figure, pointing upward in the general direction of choirmaster John Jasper in the top register, is unidentifiable in the draft, but with tailcoat and fair hair could well be Tartar--or the fair haired, fair skinned man of mystery at the bottom centre. The other possibility is fascinating in psychological terms because (if we can conceive of the figure as dark-haired) it could be John Jasper, pointing at himself, in which case the scene may represent the doting uncle's fruitless attempts to find his missing nephew, or (if his disappearance is the result of foul play) his killer.
To read the article in its entirety - and remember, this is just a theory! - http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/fildes/wrapper.html
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JoanP: fascinating!
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Joan P--Thank you, thank you. I will return after I read the whole article. I read somewhere in the Penguin edition about the men on the stairs being policemen or a posse, like the one we have already met.
I love the opium smoking gentleman on the bottom right and the woman with the smoking device (Princess Puffer?) on the bottom left out of whose combined smoke the illustrations of the story come.
I also am taken with the top illustration which shows Edwin and Rosa as a couple with Jasper observing them amongst the Cathedral clergy and altar boys.
It seems from composition alone that the bottom picture, the one with Jasper and the unidentified personage with the hat, must be important since it is in the center and balances the larger top drawing.
As for the coloring of said unidentified person, perhaps he/she is simply not inked in enough and thus is purposefully left to be filled in by the reader. We would be able to do this if we had the whole novel.
Flu report from school: There are currently more than 100 mids incarcerated in the squash courts, complete with guards to ensure that no one goes out or enters. Plan B calls for them to be moved to Halsey Field House--I heard that this was being done now but haven't confirmed that information. If we reach 400 (and one of my students pointed out that the numbers were increasing geometrically), then we go to shut down--for a week--no classes while the flu burns itself out. That's Plan C.
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Deems, Is it the regular flu that your students have?
Thanks for mentioning the cover illustration, PatH and for the interesting article, JoanP.
The bottom figure seems as if it could be Edwin Drood. It could be when he was still alive and Jasper was, perhaps, leading him into the crypts to do the dastardly deed.
I would think that Helena, Neville and Mr. Crisparkle should be on the cover too.
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Marcie--The ubiquitous "they" say it is H1N1. The students have had the regular flu mist.
All who know where I teach, please don't identify it. I've checked the news--all local newspapers--and it's not there, so obviously "they" are keeping this quiet. For the time being.
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I'm so sorry that your place of work has such an outbreak Deems! I hope you'll keep well.
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Thanks, Marcie. Doing the best I can--handwashing, using that awful hand purifier, asking students to tell me if they are sick, that I will report them present and they can go back to their rooms and sleeeeep. I don't want them to go into what "they" are not calling quarantine because it sounds overcrowded and awful. Secretary told me first thing in the morning today that "they" are out of beds in "District 9," and new admitees were being asked to bring the mattress from their beds. Really. Sounds like a petri dish situation to me.
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Yikes!
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Participate in the poll, above, on the fate of Edwin Drood. Also vote in our poll on the identity of Datchery. (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=839.0)
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
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Wow! Wait until they all drag their mattresses back to their own dorms and give it to the remaining students. I hope "District 9" is an overstatement of conditions (don't know if you've seen the movie).
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Deems, I am hoping that "the powers that be" are wrong at your school. How do they test for H1N1?We have had several students in both the elementary and high school down with it but I still don't know how to identify it. In my son's family who attend both schools, there were four infected out of six family members and they all had so many different symptoms, it was awful and the dr were saying this could last as long as 10 days and then return!!! Ugh!! I too had some kind of bug at the same time. Who knows??? None of us had H1N1.
I am still reading the last chapter and am completely confused as to who the murderer is. I do remember reading in the Penguin book, reading that Dickens knew what the ending would be as the final chapters are all written with the murderer, in jail and up for hanging, telling of his devious plan. No hint as to who that might be. Hmmmm, I must read my other book to see what those brilliant detectives have deduced. They do get wordy though. Will return after reading their ideas.
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Anne--There's a blood test that identifies H1N1. It looks like they are putting anyone with cough, sneeze etc. in what I am now thinking of as Lockdown.
Pat H--Yes, it sounds like exactly the wrong thing to do, doesn't it. Our secretary (who is a good friend and also from Maine where practical people are raised) was outraged about conditions yesterday morning. Apparently the situation has gotten worse. I just got a four page memo on guidance for how to take leave in the event of a "pandemic shutdown." I didn't see "District 9." Could you give me a brief plot summary?
I need to get more information so I can figure out what to do with next week's plans.
Anne--Not to worry--the book just stops at the end of the final installment. Remember that it is HALF what it was intended to be.
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I didn't see "District 9." Could you give me a brief plot summary?
It's a Sci-Fi action movie. The relevant point is that a bunch of aliens, captured over Johannesburg, has been subjected to a sort of apartheid, being confined to the infamous "District 9". An actual slum of Johannesburg, slated to be torn down, was used as the set for District 9, and it's overcrowded, ramshackle, shabby, falling down, full of filth and animal carcasses, etc.
Here's what I said about the movie in the Sci-Fi discussion:
As a birthday treat, my SIL took me to see "District 9" We both agreed it's the best Science Fiction movie we'd seen in years--an incredibly good job. BUT it is also extremely bloody, gross, and violent. I have a strong stomach for these things, and it was about at my upper limit.
That said, it's an extremely well done combination of social commentary and shoot-em-up chases, with a plot that keeps you guessing and action so fast-paced that you are on the edge of your seat most of the time. The special effects are really good, and so is the acting.
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How many single men live as Tartar does - wonders this mother of four boys... The title of Chapter 22--"A Gritty State of Things" - and yet we find Tartar on the ready to host the meeting of the two young ladies, without advance notice so he could do a major clearnup. So clean, a toothpick would be noted as being out of order. The bathroom - "like a dairy." I loved that!
So Helena and Rosa Bud meet in this ship-shape quarters - Rosa tells Helena she can never go back to Cloisterham, to Miss Twinkleton's - and it turns out that she will be staying in London BUT Neville is not to know this - not even that Rosa has been talking to Helena. This is Helena's idea. Is it because of Neville's feelings for Rosa? What had Dickens' been planning? Everyone loves Rosa - Jasper, Neville, Tartar, Mr. Grewgious...Edwin? I suppose this is where we must leave them now.
What is the Gritty State of Things of the title? That chapter seemed so light in tone, comical, even - I thought the REAL "gritty" state was the next chapter...and final chapter. Perhaps John Forster arranged Chapter 22 and 23 into these two chapters - perhaps he even titled the chapter himself! Matthew Pearl tells us that some reorganization was needed in preparing the 6th installment for printing.
"Though the chapter numbers themselves can vary depending on the edition (the reason for this is after Dickens's death, the sixth and final installment was reorganized by John Forster, Dickens's literary executor, and one of the chapters split into two)." M. Pearl
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Joan P--I laughed at the mother of four sons' comment on the ship-shapeness of Tartar's digs. Having seen a few bachelor pads myself, I agree. But surely the chapter title reflects the end of the chapter with Rosa's comment on London, "'Cannot people get through life without gritty stages, I wonder,' Rosa thought next day, when the town was very gritty again, and everything had a strange and an uncomfortable appearance on it of seeming to wait for something that wouldn't come." The day before Rosa was having her river jaunt with Tartar, having escaped the city.
Gritty old London, especially the area around Grewgious's office/chambers is wonderfully described at the very beginning of Chapter 11: In an ancient part of London there is "a little nook composed of two irregular quadrangles, called Staple Inn. . . .It is one of those nooks where a few smoky sparrows twitter in smoky trees, as though they called to one another, 'Let us play at country,' and where a few feet of garden mould and a few yards of gravel enable them to do that refreshing violence to their tiny understandings."
Have you ever watched sparrows take dirt baths? I think that's what's going on here. Sparrows can enjoy themselves in any kind of situation and they always seem to make a life for themselves by adjusting.
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"we find Tartar on the ready to host the meeting of the two young ladies, without advance notice so he could do a major clearnup. So clearn, a toothpick would be noted as being out of order".
Don't forgetthat Tartar had been a sailor. The stereotype of sailors (whether true or not) was that they learned to keep everything "shipshape": clean, tidy, a place for everything, everything in its place.
No doubt that Rosa and Tartar are attracted to each other. Yet the tone of Dickens writing about Tartar is wrong for someone who will marry a heroine.
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JoanK--Please give me some examples of what you mean about the tone being wrong for Tartar to be a match for Rosa? I'm missing it. Perhaps the problem is that we haven't had any time to get used to them together? Rosa has a wonderful time on the boat with him, and she even thinks what an observer might see watching her crossing the street with Tartar. He's very good to her and he's a "man of the world" who is modest enough to start small. He has inherited money (after he agreed to give up the navy) and he is starting small by having his window box garden to get used to living on land. And he's neat. And most likely he's a good cook. What's not to love?
You're right about being in the navy. One thing that is dangerous aboard ship is to have anyone who is not organized with belongings. It is important that ropes be arranged in exactly the same way so that everyone will know where they are. There can't be any unsecured items when rough water comes or lives are at risk. It's one very organized life. Neatness and having everything squared away is stressed!
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Pat H--I forgot to thank you for the summary of "District 9." It turns out that the movie is still playing. I had assumed it was from last year (don't know why). And somehow I had it in my mind that it was about zombies--again, no idea why. It sounds like a movie I might even want to see, a different take on aliens. I did love the original Alien movie, the one where the creature was born out of a man's chest, shrieking and then scuttling away at an incredible speed. I've never forgotten that scene. Sigourney Weaver was the star.
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No doubt that Rosa and Tartar are attracted to each other. Yet the tone of Dickens writing about Tartar is wrong for someone who will marry a heroine.
JoanK--Please give me some examples of what you mean about the tone being wrong for Tartar to be a match for Rosa? I'm missing it.
I see it too, and at the moment I can't find the passages; I'll look further later. It boils down to Tartar being a little too quirky. Rosa is certainly attracted; she gets all a-flutter when she talks of him. He's certainly eligible enough.
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PatH--How was the Book Fair? I thought of you and Joan when it began to rain. Hope you had fun anyway--and took an umbrella.
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Has anyone wondered why Nevile and Helena and their mentor are in this story?? Reminds me of a Poirot mystery where the brother and sister were actually husband and wife??? And why are they in Cloisterham??
I love the idea of Lisa and Datcher being a couple but they probably won't. I am assuming that Dick Datcher is actually the aide to Grewgious, Bazzer? Is that his name? Why is Datcher in Cloisterham talking to the opium Lady about Edwin having given her money to pay for a room on Christmas Eve before he disappeared? So was she the last to see Edwin alive??? Maybe......
Does anyone remember reading the opium lady's remarks about Jasper talking to himself and saying that he was going to prevent someone from hurting his nephew??? By throwing him out a window???
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We had a great time at the National Book festival - Kirstin Downey is a doll. We'll get our thoughts - and some photos up tomorrow. Both Pat and I agree it was an exhausting day - but well worth it. We left before the rain began in earnest, had lunch together at Jaleo (some of you will remember that tapas restaurant) and then made our way home on overcrowded Metro trains.
Annie, I have a hard time understanding why Princess Puffer is in Cloisterham - and more than that - why she is so angry with Jasper, a paying client during hard times. She seems to be stalking him...coming up from London and then hiding during the service in the cathedral, shaking her fist in anger at him from behind a column - with Datchery watching the whole performance - keeping some sort of record on his chalkboard. Does she know that Jasper has murdered his nephew?
She feels gratitude towards Edwin who freely gave her three and sixpence on Christmas Eve when she needed it - does she know from her session with Jasper, that he has done something terrible. I remember reading that scene in the opium den - when Jasper tells her that he actually enjoyed doing it. Does she want revenge? Do you think that Dickens was planning to have the Princess point the finger at Jasper?
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Joan
I didn't even consider Puffer's appearance odd but I should have. (The author's license?) I guess that when she told Datcher that Edwin had given her money for a ride or bed on that Christmas Eve, I was only thinking about her being the last person to see Edwin that night.
Are you also not wondering why Datcher is slinking around at the same time Puffer is hiding behind the pillar waving her fists at Jasper? Is he doing some detective work for Grewgious??? Assuming that I am right in identifying him as "Bazzard", Grewgious's aide de camp.
The book, "D Case" that Marcie and I have both been perusing has a completely different perspective on this and quite a surprise solution at the end. Poirot, Holmes and DePeau solve the case, I believe.
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Such an intriguing--and maddening--last chapter. When Jasper goes again to London to smoke opium with the Princess Puffer, she mentions that she thought he was dead because he has been away six months and she thought he couldn't go that long without the drug. He admits that he has been taking it in his own way.
But it's the part about the opium dreams Jasper has had before where he dreamed over and over again of doing the same thing. He asks the Princess if she has done so and she has. Jasper, in the closest we get to a confession tells her: "I did it millions and billions of times. I did it so often, and through such vast expanses of time, that when it was really done, it seemed not worth the doing, it was done so soon." [footnote in Penguin cites the line from Macbeth "If it were done when 'tis done, them 'twere well/ It were done quickly." But there's no gloss on the quote which suggests in the first part that a murder is not done when it's done, that something always follows.]
In the drugged conversation Jasper admits to Princess that he has dreamed of doing "it" in exactly the same way every time he has dreamed it (all those previous opium dreams he had including the one from Chapter 1 where he attempts to strangle the Chinese man: "Then he comes back, pounces on the Chinaman, and, seizing him with both hands by the throat, turns him violently on the bed.")
When Jasper finally lapses into sleep, Princess reveals, "I heard ye say once, when I was lying where you're lying, and you were making your speculations upon me, 'Unintelligible!' I heard you say so, of two more than me. But don't ye be too sure always; don't ye be too sure, beauty."
So we know that she heard what Jasper said (Chapter 1) and that she has become curious. I think she intends to blackmail him--better money that way--and in order to do so, she needs to find out who he is. Surely she can tell from his clothing that he is a "respectable" man, not like the sailors and others she serves. And so she follows him to Cloisterham.
That's just speculation, of course. But we know that she has heard him use the name "Ned" in previous dreams and that he was threatening him. Pieces are there for her to put together if she can just get more information.
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Here's a photocopy of the last page Dickens wrote (http://charlesdickenspage.com/drood_last_page.html) - in his own hand -
The very last image he's left us - "Before sitting down to it, he [Datchery] opens his corner- cupboard door; takes his bit of chalk from its shelf; adds one thick line to the score, extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom..."
Datchery is surely a detective, Annie - but WHO is he? He's got to be someone in disguise. We'll never really know, will we?
We've come full circle - Dawn Again - back in the opium den with the two characters we started out with - Princess Puffer and Uncle Jasper, worried about what he has said in his opium-induced dreams. I'm thinking Dickens couldn't have planned it better...the symmetry.
Did you notice - in that last "maddening" chapter - when Princess P asks Jasper as she prepares him for his last "trip" - she notices he is dressed in mourning and asks who died:
"Who was they as died, deary?
'A relation.l'
'Died of what, lovey?'
'Probably, Death.'
Can't you see Dickens sitting at his writing table, penning those lines on his last day? PROBABLY, DEATH Always that suggestion that Edwin is not necessarily dead!
No, what I really found chilling was Jasper's remark following the lines you quoted, Maryal,
"I did it millions and billions of times. I did it so often, and through such vast expanses of time, that when it was really done, it seemed not worth the doing, it was done so soon."
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"It was pleasant to do so."
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Thank you, Joan P, for the photocopy of the last page and the transcript. So happy to see the transcript--I'm pretty good at deciphering handwriting, but a smallish hand with a dip pen--I'd rather not, thank you.
It looks like I did manage to catch some sort of flu--coughing, tight chest, low temperature (just over 100), painful tummy-- but we have been instructed to take leave if ill and I am happy to do so. It's good to be home when my head is as scrambled as it is today.
I find it interesting that Deputy has been brought back into the story. I wonder what Dickens might have had in mind for him. The boy is very observant, not to mention up at all hours keeping watch over Durdles in order to stone him home. And here he is on this last page, watching. . . . .
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I'm sorry that you're not feeling well, Deems. Thanks for the photocopy of that page, JoanP.
I'm changing my mind about who Datchery might be. I think that his suntanned face and hands and blue eyes wouldn't make Tartar a good candidate for the disguised Datchery. I thought, at first, that it wasn't Grewgious' assistant, Bazzard, because Bazzard seemed to have so odd a speech pattern when talking with Grewgious. But he's a play writer and would, I think, have access to costumes. Even though he's not successful putting his play on stage, I think he'd have some imagination. He also might come alive taking on a new role. He's one person who would not be known in Cloisterdam.
Good point, Joan, about Deputy taking on a bigger role now. I wish we knew what Dickens would have happen to all of the characters. They were all interesting to me.
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Oh, DEEMS, do take care of yourself. I'm sending you virtual chicken soup through the internet
JoanP: that page is fascinating. So glad I don't have to read his writing -- wwhoever did should get a medal.
The beginning sounds a bit confused, but the end is good. I'll bet Deputy wind up observing something that is key.I loved Dickens' comparing the choir robes to nightgowns. That's how I felt about them as a child in the choir. And the picture of the church, with everyone peeping and Jasper,oblivious! If this book had been finished, it surely would have ranked among his best.
This mysterious line that Datchery is making! Obviously the line of what happened. Modern mystery writers sometimes have their detectives marking patterns on papers on the wall: wonder if this is where they got it.
(I don't remember that scene from what I read. Have to go back and look).
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I'm really glad we have as much of the last chapter as we do. That's a remarkable scene in the opium den. Jasper has certainly killed Edwin, or at least believes he has, and now he's starting to fall apart before our eyes. I bet by the end of the book he's pretty raving. Something odd happens, too. Jasper is starting to relive his dream but his vision is disappointingly poor:
"...No struggle, no consciousness of peril, no entreaty--and yet I never saw that before." With a start.
"Saw what, deary?"
"Look at it! Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it is! That must be real. It's over."
He then turns stuporous. What did he see? Did something different happen during the actual attempt at murder?
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Pat, yes, I too am wondering what Jasper saw in his latest vision. Did he finally see Edwin's dead body? Did he see himself punished for the crime?
JoanP, I also am wondering about Princess Puffer. She seems pretty sharp. She DID hear Jasper (in the very first pages of the book) say "indecipherable" when trying to listen to the others to see if they betrayed their opium dreams. It also appears that she has heard Jasper say some things during his opium stupors (including some foul play regarding 'Ned'). Why does she follow him and shake her fist at him? Is she somehow related to Jasper or Drood? I wouldn't put it past Dickens to make her a lost relative.
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We've added a poll to the top of the discussion pages here. Vote (once) on what you think happened to Edwin Drood.
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Pat H--I'm glad we have as much as we do too. I think that Jasper might be thinking of how disappointing the dream fulfilled (murdering Edwin) was to all the anticipation he had of it in opium dreams. Apparently Edwin did not cry out or struggle much or beg for his life, and it was quickly over. It--the murder--just didn't live up to all that Jasper had anticipated:
"...No struggle, no consciousness of peril, no entreaty--and yet I never saw that before." With a start.
"Saw what, deary?"
"Look at it! Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it is! That must be real. It's over."
I think what Jasper never saw before was Death and that it turned out to be a "poor, mean, miserable thing" instead of the grand triumph--or whatever--he must have dreamed under the influence of opium.
Marcie--Given that this IS Dickens and he certainly is fond of intertwining characters and finding long-lost relatives--I think you might really be on to something. Perhaps Princess Puffer had an interesting life before she became addicted to opium and maybe she was related to someone we already know.
The possibilities are endless!
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Everybody--Please go and vote for what you think happened. Marcie has added a poll in the header. Thank heaven Mr. Grewgious is not one of the candidates.
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At any rate, a lot of details of Princess Puffer's actions are cleared up. At the beginning of the book, she had heard Jasper plotting murder. At that time she didn't know who he was. She followed him, but lost him when he got on the omnibus. Presumably she then took the next omnibus, but couldn't find him. Probably she meant to blackmail him, before or after the murder, and maybe get money out of the proposed victim, too, if she could find him. I wonder what she would have done if Edwin's answers had been less misleading.
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OK, I voted, but none of the choices matched what I think exactly.
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I'm so curious to hear what you are thinking, PatH! Imagine had Dickens died BEFORE he wrote this last chapter, Dawn Again! It's in this chapter that we begin to see Dickens' plot unfold. It's dawn in Cloisterham:
"Drowsy Cloisterham, when...was pretty equally divided in opinion whether John Jasper's beloved nephew had been killed by his passionate rival treacherously, or in an open struggle, or had, for his own purposes, spirited himself away."
Of course we know it wasn't Neville. Dickens has left us with the belief that Jasper must be a murderer, whether clouded by opium or no. It is so obvious, there seems to be no other answer to what happened to Edwin. Does this sound like Dickens? Does this sound like a mystery, or rather a study of a murder, a murderer? And yet Dickens on many occasions went out his way to stress that this is not the Murder of Edwin Drood, but rather the Mystery of Edwin Drood.
I admit that everything is pointing to the fact that Edwin must be dead. We know he had planned to wait for Mr. Grewgious to return the ring. He wouldn't leave with that ring, would he? He wants Rosa to have it someday. If something happened that night between himself and Jasper, would he have left town without alerting Rosa, leaving her unprotected? PatH, it is quite possible that the "poor, mean, miserable thing" Jasper saw - was Death - Edwin - who put up no fight, did not plead for his life...it was all like a dream, a dream he dreamed often under an opium cloud. Could not this be yet another dream?
I've no answer as to what has happened to Edwin - it's a mystery. Still, this is Dickens. He may have had an explanation planned. Perhaps Edwin gave the ring to someone that night to give to Mr. Grewgious...
There are two key people who grew in importance in the last chapter. Why is Princess Puffer so intent on Jasper's ramblings in the opium den? As you say, maybe she is planning extortion - but why is she so angry with Jasper? Why did she come from London to Cloisterham that Christmas Eve when she met Edwin? Did she come to Cloisterham to warn him?
Then there's Datchery. Now isn't he a mystery himself! Who is Datchery, really? JoanK, there was previous reference to the chalk board Datchery keeps in the pantry -
"...he rises, throws open the door of a corner cupboard, and refers to a few uncouth chalked strokes on its inner side.
'I like the old tavern way of keeping scores. Illegible except to the scorer.
...Takes a bit of chalk from the shelf and puts up a moderate stroke...this after he learns where Princess Puffer lives in London - or that in the morning she's going to "the KIN-FREEE-DER-EL!" this is Deputy's pronunciation. But after seeing Puffer shake her fist - twice - at Jasper, Datchery decides that this action merits a thick broad chalk line on his scoreboard.
Do you really think he's working for Mr. Grewgious? Maybe we should have a poll - Who is Datchery?
Bottom line, I don't know what happened to Edwin...except I really don't think Dickens wanted to do away with the boy in the end.
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Joan P, could it be possible that you are overly optimistic? Dickens killed characters in other novels. He let Little Nell die even though many of his readers wrote to him and begged for her life. Silly Dora dies in David Copperfield. And that's just a couple. Of course neither Nell nor Dora was murdered, but hey, why not Edwin?
It's been six months since we've seen or heard from Edwin. If he were alive, would he not have contacted someone? Why would he simply wander off somewhere. What about Egypt and his engineering job? He was looking forward to that. Wouldn't Jasper have checked with his employer to see if he turned up there?
He's dead. I am convinced that he is dead. Why would Durdles have been introduced as so prominent a minor character as well as Deputy? Dickens must have had something in mind for both of them. And now we have Princess Puffer shaking her fists at Jasper, in anger, one supposes. Surely the reason for her anger would have been given in subsequent chapters.
Where do you think Edwin is?
And Pat H, I'm really curious to see what you think that there was no available button for in the poll. Please do tell us.
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Hmmm, those are girls you mention - vulnerable little girls, much like Mary Howarth, his SIL who died at a young age. It is said that her death hovered over him for the rest of his life. He wore her ring always.
I think Dickens relates to his boys - boys who try to do the right thing, which Edwin was doing. I haven't any idea where Edwin might be, if not dead. But as I see it, there's not much plot if the killer is so obvious to everyone... Can you imagine six more episodes waiting for Edwin? The readers would have been stirred to a frenzy by the 12th episode.
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Yes, I'm very interested to hear what you think, Pat. And anyone else, let us know where you think Drood could be if he is not dead.
Good suggestion, Joan, about a poll about Datchery. I can't put another poll in this discussion. I'll have to create a new one. Here is the poll for Datchery's identity: http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=839.0
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DEEMS: this book has converted me to a Dickens fan -- but partly because it lacks the treacly sentimentality I associate with other books of his I'vbe read. What are somme of his books with this tone? (I've read David Copperfield and Oliver Twist)
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Joan K, you made my poor afflicted heart skip a beat! I'm so glad you like Dickens in this mood. I think that Bleak House is his greatest novel and it lasts a long time--very thick. I haven't yet read Our Mutual Friend, also a late novel, but am planning to at some point. Great Expectations is also wonderful.
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JoanK, I am with you in enjoying Dickens through this work. I may have been introduced to him too early in school and didn't appreciate him before.
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I'm with you, Marcie. Not counting Drood, I've read at least 6 Dickens novels, but the only one of those I've reread as a real adult is "David Copperfield", which I reread in 1992. I was surprised at a lot of stuff I hadn't noticed before, and I bet if I read it now I'd see even more, because I'm still evolving as a fiction reader.
Deems, I rather liked Dickens, but would have asked the same question if JoanK hadn't. "Bleak House" goes on my TBR list, pretty high up.
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If it works into our reading schedules, maybe some of us can read Bleak House together.
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I would like to do Bleak House with this group, Marcie - but personally, not for a while.
I have tried to respond to the Datchery question a number of times - but must admit, I'm stumped! He is surely in disguise, but whether it is someone we know already or have yet to meet in installments 7-12, I can't say. Maybe it is someone we haven't met yet. I have the feeling it's someone we've met before. He seems to know so many personal things about Jasper that only his nephew would know. Do you remember Edwin telling anyone - Crispsparkle for example, or Rosa - that his uncle was using opium? How would Datchery know that? I think knowing Datchery's identity is key to where Dickens was going with his tale.
Is this a case of - what if we held a poll - and no one posted an answer? :D
I have to say that I'm really looking forward to Matthew Pearl's Last Dickens- AND his participation in that discussion! He's researched this book for the last three years - not only the book, but the peripherals - the letters, illustrations, conversations, interviewsetc. I'm interested in learning if he reached any conclusions of his own on the subject. (And if he has, will he tell?)
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What I meant by no appropriate button: I think Jasper is the murderer, but we don't know if he succeeded (he thinks he did). Edwin may still be alive.
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Oh, that's a good thought, Pat.
JoanP, I'm looking forward to The Last Dickens discussion too. I'm sure we'll get more insights into Dickens and his writing of Drood.
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Dear All,
Thank you for a most interesting discussion of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I have enjoyed it enormously and hope that some time in the future we can get together to tackle another Dickens (the others all have endings!)
Tomorrow we have the beginning of Matthew Pearl's The Last Dickens. I hope to see you all there! I hope that Joan P is right, and we can get Matthew to divulge some of his thinking about Drood. He must have done a lot of reading and thinking in preparation for his novel, and he has been wonderfully available and helpful in the past.
Maryal/Deems
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood - by Charles Dickens
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/grewgiousnewsensation.gif)
| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/masterdrood/masterdroodcvrsm.jpg) | Had Dickens lived to complete "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," his 15th novel would have been one of his major accomplishments, say many of his critics. The novel was scheduled to be published in twelve installments from April 1870 to March 1871. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870, which left the mystery half finished.
"The ideal mystery is one you would read if the end was missing," writes Richard Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. Reading and discussing an unfinished mystery is a unique experience, especially when shared with a group. Will we agree with the critics, or go mad trying to figure out what he intended for the young engaged couple introduced at the start of the book? And what has become of young Edwin Drood? Help us track down clues as we read along ... and then we'll each propose our own ending during the last few days of the discussion.
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Chapter discussion schedule
September 1-6: 1-6
September 7-13: 7-12
September 14-20: 13-18
September 21-27: 19-23
This unfinished mystery is available in several places on the Internet (http://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood-by-charles-dickens) at no cost but you might want to purchase the book or borrow it from your library, in order to read one of the editions, such as the Penguin Classics, that has useful footnotes.
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Participate in the poll, above, on the fate of Edwin Drood. Also vote in our poll on the identity of Datchery. (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=839.0)
See the previous questions and related links. (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/readerguides/MysteryEdwinDrood_Dickens.html)
Discussion Leaders: Deems (howland@usna.edu), Marcie (marciei@aol.com)
This has been a great discussion. Reading the book like this really brings out all the subtle little touches that I've never noticed in Dickens before. You all as DLs and participants are without equal!!
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Hope you are feeling better, Maryal. I've heard you need at least a week to recover. Even not feeling 100%, you and Marcie made a super-team! We are looking forward to a repeat performance. Thank you! Thank you!
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Deems,
Thanks so much for taking the time to lead this most interesting discussion. Despite getting ready for classes to start and then, having the flu, you have done a great job.
See ya' tomorrow in "The Last Dickens".
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Special thanks to Marcie who did all the headings and posting of illustrations, not to mention the helpful links to online editions and Librivox.
Joan P--thanks for telling me about needing a week to recover. I'm feeling better today--still have the cough and the body pains, but I can almost THink again which I really appreciate.
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Thank you, Annie, for all your thoughtful posts. I'll see you in The Last Dickens. We're all up to date on opium use, no?
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Thank you, Deems, for your enlightened leadership and to everyone else for all of the knowledge and insights you shared. I very much enjoyed this discussion and look forward to continuing it in The Last Dickens (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=840.0). I do hope you'll all be there.
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That was a wonderful discussion--really complex and challenging. I never got around to writing up my best guess ending, but that's all right, maybe it'll change after the Last Dickens. Thank you, Deems and Marcie, for leading us so ably in sickness and in health.
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Oh, Marcie, I didn't mean to forget your help with this discussion so please forgive my overlooking your participation. I enjoyed not only your posts but the links you were able to leave for us. This book was sort of a lead-in to "The Last Dickens". See you there!
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Annie, Deems did all the work of structuring the discussion and providing the questions. I agree that this book has been a great lead-in to The Last Dickens (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=840.0). I'm glad to be able to continue to talk about this intriguing story.
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This was hilarious. What a magnificent mystery. Left in a mind-boggling daze. Lost in a narrative maze. Bamboozled by an opium haze. Mysterys don't get any better.
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You've caught the Dickens prose bug, Jonathan. Or is it Dr. Seuss? ;)
I hope you'll join the new discussion of The Last Dickens.
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I'm wandering, still in my daze, over there now.
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:-), JoanK
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Sorry I wasn't able to participate in this discussion - I guess I'll never be a fan of Dickens. BUT I have enjoyed 'lurking' and have read all the posts - they are just stunning. I think every likely possibility as to Edwin's fate has been explored and then some.
Thanks to all for sharing your thoughts.
Special thanks to Marcie and Deems -again, a wonderful job keeping all the threads alive. Thank you.
Deems - Hope your flu will soon be a thing of the past. If you do Bleak House in the future you'll find me lurking in the corner. I am a glutton for punishment. ;D
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gumtree, I'm sorry you couldn't get into this Dickens but there may be hope for Bleak House in the future. ;-) I'll be giving it a try also.
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I'll agree with Gumtree, I read parts of Dicken's Drood, but couldn't seem to get very enthusiastic about it.
A good discussion that I enjoyed more than the book.
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Yes, we had great participants here who shared wonderful insights and interesting background on various points in the book. I love SeniorLearn discussions! I always learn so much.